It's pretty much the same as Kalameet from DS1, an optional boss that was there for completion mostly. Midir feels a little more integral than that though, because you unlock a covenant for killing him.
First time playing through the Ringed City, I fucking hated Midir and Gael, because they had so much health for no god damn reason. After spending some time observing their movesets a little bit, I started to like them more, especially Gael. But they all have so much god damn health. The Demons Boss fight can go on for so long, because you have to completely deplete 3 fairly large enemy health pools. I thought that part of the difficulty added in the Ringed City really sucked.
mike42192 Exactly, one of my gripes with the Ringed City is that bosses have way too much defense/HP (especially on high NG cycles). Still, I played both DLCs on NG+3 and I didn't have trouble with Midir nor Gael...but Friede? I hated her.
That's understandable, but the difference between the main game boss fights, like the Crystal Sage or the Abyss Watchers and Friede and Gael is ridiculous. But to be fair, the DLC for Dark Souls 1 was the same way.
@@somedude653 Blueberry? The boss isn't bad in a vacuum. Honestly, Smelter Demon was one of the better bosses IMHO, so mechanically it's not too bad. The problem is that the run-up is probably the worst in the series what with getting sniped by greatbows from enemies completely out of reach of melee characters while the astrologers slow you down and you're rushed by groups of aggressive knights and wizard assassins for, what, 5 or 6 corridors? Then you cross the fog wall and are greeted by a palette swapped version of a main game boss in paid DLC. It's an incredibly BS moment in an otherwise solid DLC.
@@anagoth9 All of the side areas in the Three Crowns DLC were intended as multiplayer areas; IMO, the real issue was not that they existed, but rather that they looked like part of the regular levels, and that you could go through on your own. You can tell that they're all multiplayer levels because all of them give you NPCs to summon at the start of the level, and also all of them have the same gravestone-like structures that feature at the starting shrine area of each DLC level. AFAIK, the intention was that you could put down your summon sign at the beginning of the DLC and thus get summoned into those multiplayer areas even if you didn't have the DLC. I personally think they should have gone one step further and simply made those multiplayer area accessible from the starting zone and allowed even players who didn't have the DLC to access them. They could have served as decent teasers for the DLC that might have induced players who didn't buy them to purchase if they liked the multiplayer level. As a multiplayer level, the Smelter Demon path is actually pretty good, though you absolutely need multiplayer for it to be anything other that awful. In each area there's a path with a gate, a lever, and enemies that attack after you pull the lever. You're intended to have your allies go in front of the gate, then you pull the lever to let them through, and then beat the enemies. Then your allies can help ambush enemies from the upper path. It's actually a really good idea for a level, I just don't think it's well implemented. The other problem is that it only works in actual multiplayer since the NPC phantoms aren't smart enough to interact with the level as intended. Overall, as someone who doesn't much like multiplayer in the Souls games, I think the multiplayer areas are all a waste of development time that could have been put towards making more good levels. Nevertheless, a lot of people really liked DS2 multiplayer, and I don't think it was inherently a bad choice to cater part of each DLC towards them. I just don't like it personally, and it seems like most people never got the memo that those areas were intended for multiplayer, so they came across a lot worse than the developers intended.
Nothing really but its a nice little gift wrapped in a bow tie : You get to face the boss again without the butterflys in a new arena and you get its Armour.
Ora Saikatsu that’s called Dragonslayer set, Ornstein’s from DaS. The one they mean is the Dragonslayer’s IRON armor which belongs to the dragonslayer armor from base game DaS 3
Can we just take a sec and appreciate that Joseph took the time to play fashion souls, dress his character as Rocky, give him a Rocky training montage complete with punching meat and climbing stairs just for visual reference?
You did miss the the point of the large headless monsters. At 14:30 when they're first introduced, the monster jumps down from the top of the stairs. It shows the player that there is a staircase you can run up to do a plunging attack. If the player does just that, a unique animation will play and you will do thousands of damage. Everywhere these monsters are located, there is a vertical component of the map. You are intended to lure the monsters to certain areas, so you can do a plunging attack for a one shot kill.
You don't really need to be good to beat all 6, you just need to have a little patience and implement what the series has taught you since the beginning: lure enemies away from the pack and kill them one by one. I honestly didn't even consider using a plunging attack until I had already gotten a rhythm for doing what I described above.
I think the player needed to be introduced to the monster by being given a change to do a drop attack to begin with before the monster aggros. Not the other way around.
Gael is meant to end out a playthrough. Gael leaves you the messages, and leaves scraps of his cloak near hard to find locations that are required to progress.Knowing Gael's lore greatly improves the fight.Gael is meant to be a friend, and dueling him is meant to give off a similar feeling to the Gherman fight.
No. The Ringed City is the final piece of Dark Souls content ever as confirmed by Miyazaki himself, or at least until someone wants to do something with it.
I completely disagree with you in the order thing, both the dlc order and the dragon. I am 100% sure painted world is suposed to go first, youre suposed to meet gael when he has not been consumed by his quest, you travel to the end of time to stop him and retroactively are able to save the painted world by gathering the blood. Similar to killing the soul of cinder/gwyn adn having the choice to relight the flame you get the choice to go back to the past and give the blood to the painter, it is a meaningless menu in terms of mechanics and doesnt really give you a big cutscene or anything but it is a meaningful choice your character can make, sort of like finishing the poem that is the lore. That said I agree with you that 2 DLC packs were not the plan from the start I believe both DLCS were 1 originally but they were still in this order, where you kill Friede way before Gael.
I think he was pulling hard there, trying to justify his own twisted logic, made him seem a more than a little conceited, which was something I've been picking out in his other videos.
@@niteowl2397 Gael is the one who starts the painted world? He is clearly the most important character in both the DLCs. Just because he isn't some flashy black flame engulfed twin scythe wielding badass doesn't make him any less important just because y'all edge lords say so. Gael has been there through it all and outlived gods. He symbolizes the history of the souls trilogy.
If you play The Ringed City before the Ashes of Ariandel, you see a world that's doomed to die, then you prevent another world from suffering the same fate. In this context, you're trying to prevent Ariandel from suffering the same fate of the Ringed City.
@@davidhong1934 In AoA don’t you bring upon the death of the painted world since after father ariandel resurrected Friede, he caused flame to spread throughout the entire painting, thus letting it burn away.
20:05 "cryptic npcs that tell you about the bosses you'll be fighting" their not talking about bosses silly, fear not the dark my friend, and let the feast begin.
6:31 FromSoftware said in an interview before Ringed city was released that they were figuring out where to put the DLC entrance for people who did not buy Ashes of Ariandel and they ended up placing it in the Kiln of the First flame. To me this seems to suggest that Ashes of Ariandel was meant to be done first since the beginning.
I think, the idea of headless guys is that you don't necessarily kill them in staight fight, but try to plundge attack them, since it have unique animation and require only one hit to kill. In the Ring City itself I just ran to bridge and dropped on them whenever possible, found it more enjoyable, instead of fighting them head to head
It depends if you are going for a strength or a dex build, or quality build, or if you are on NG+ etc. With a high damage strength build you do, but with a dex weapon it usually a little bit of health left, just enough that you need an extra hit.
With the lore implications and the general difficulty, I think you're supposed to do Ashes first. Let's break it down. First off, all through the Dreg Heap, Gael is helping you. He left tatters of his cloak, and later he left messages for you. Because you were originally supposed to follow just his cloak, that means you HAVE to have known who Gael was before going into the dreg heap, if you want to have any idea what's going on. Furthermore, Gael helps you in the first boss fight, and also helps you against Friede. It fits his story more that he would want to see Friede killed first before hunting down the dark soul, as he needs his lady to be able to paint first, before he can even think about getting the pigment. While yes, Friede is a 3 phase boss fight with 3 health bars and radically different battles, Gael has enough health to be 3 health bars. And each phase is extremely different, and broken up exactly at 1/3 intervals on his health bar.
Friede is only ever harder because phase 2 is a gank and some people(Especially me) might have trouble with that. Gael is the harder duel boss and Midir is even harder than that.
@Steven Murphy Strong disagree. I think shields in DS 1 and 2 are okay to use but less fun, still good that they are there for different playstyles. Shields in ds3 are useless though, I agree with that. Though I think that's not a good thing. NK is one of the only bosses that require you to not spam roll, true. Which is why it is always at the top of all "most difficult" lists. Because it actually does take some learning.
@@Wuuff Nah it was a final farewell from the character that's been in every soulsborne game, and it's the only time when you get to be his genuine friend. Fuck Solaire and Siegward. Lapp is my main guy now.
Ashes is definately meant to go first, at the end of it is where you're sort of given your mission to find out about Gael's quest for the dark soul. Then you go through it and give the painter the pigment. There's even a bonfire in friede's boss room that takes you to the dreg heap.
The good thing is, the devs thought about every way you can enter the DLCs: if you go to the Ashes after Usurpation of the Flame ending of the base game, Friede and her henchman call you "The Lord of Hollows", referencing your more complicated route; if you go to the Dreg Keep before Ashes, instead of seeing Gael in the Chapel, you only see the piece of the painting on the altar, as Joseph mentioned. Of course, the most obvious path is [any point of the main campaign from Lothric Castle on] -> Ashes -> Ringed City, but I wouldn't say any other path ruins the experience, it just feels different... and Uncle Gael might not appear to help you with Friede. :(
There's a neat shortcut to kill the 1st angel in earthen peek, just head towards the hut on the cliff edge and drop around it to the right on to a branch. The Harald knights can be killed quickly with a plunge attack, they usually give you access to do that for each knight.
Whilst I agree that different skill levels is an inherent issue for Halfllight, this is the reason that in order to unlock the covenant you must defeat Midir. In my opinion this is why Midir had such a large health pool. You must prove that you can consistently dodge attacks for a prolonged period of time before you can earn the right to become a dark souls boss. You have to show you have the mettle to take that role.
@just dont Boy why did you spam this everywhere? Having high resistance and having high HP are indistinguishable to the average Joe, they both mean that they take a lot of hits to kill. I'm a Midir apologist myself, but saying that they're not the same thing is... well it "just isn't true."
That's not exactly why, with UGS class weapons you can just spam the R2 stabbing attack that will literally stagger ANY enemy it hits. Then keep charged R2ing until they die, and the stamina regen will actually break even.
I used Yhorms Great Machete so the Ronged Knights were easy for me. Just hit them and stunlock, or heavy attack and pancake them to the ground comically. The dual greatsword ones need heavy attacks though to interrupt their attacks.
Gael is one of my favorite bosses in the soulsborne series because it feels fun dodging all his moves and he reminds me of orphan of kos (which is also one of my favorites).
Both Swamps were the biggest disappointments. I thought Ringed City will be a vine, overgrown forgotten City/Castle you can explore. Sadly, only in the beginning that was the case. The Rest was swamp and a little Dungeon.
Ringed City was maybe the most original part of Dark Souls 3, and it literally had 2 swamps in it. This is confirmation that the series had a good run, it needs to be over now.
@@thomasmaddox8688 wow you really shitting on the 2nd best dlc from has ever done. also irythyll was a city you could explore why would they do the same thing again. opinions i guess but idk why ds3 gets soo much hate. its a fantastic game.
@@Oknahidwin "irythyll was a city you could explore" I wouldn't call running in a linear path to a bonfire and then running again to the boss exploring. Irythyll is one of the worst cases of wasted potential in this game. ever play dark souls 1? compare the first area in that game to irythyll. also are you kidding with this ? "why would they do the same thing again" yeah being able to explore a massive interconnected city is a good thing but why would fromsoft ever do that again lol
28:20 Midir does not have a "gigantic health bar". I see this parroted all the time when Midir is discussed and it just isn't true. On NG he has a total of 15,860HP, compared to Gael's 14,985HP. That's a difference of only 875HP. Not a big deal. The real issue here, and why so many people fervently believe that Midir is tanky as all hell, is that he has more immunities and resistances and he's so mobile. Most of his fight is about positioning, so you spend the majority of your time running around or waiting for him to do something, meaning you aren't dealing damage which means the fight takes longer that it would with any other boss simply by virtue of him having the zoomies.
Yeah, I had a really hard time doing an INT build and learning he resists almost everything that scales off of INT except for a mist spell that can hurt you.
So you are telling me that he doesnt have more HP to take down, but that the immunitys give him more hits to take him down making his HP longer than avarage HP? As in Longer HP than normal? The argument in no shape or form is wrong and putting your 200iq glasses on and snorting on your technicalities doesnt change that. But Midir is nothing short of a joke, Tanky HP no difficulity.
^NutcasE^ He is tanky but his HP is reasonable because he is a fucking gigantic dragon, or did you expect killing a dragon in just a few hits? And also the other problem is that most players fight him by hitting the legs and tail when actually the best way to fight him is hitting his head, which takes double the damage. He is a great boss and the best dragon boss of the series for sure.
As much as i like the DS franchise, i really hope it actually is the end of the series(or at least a major break from it), we need something fresh from From Software, i also hope it will not end up as a Playstation exclusive :/
You have a weird infatuation with fighting multiple enemies in this series. And about the last part... dude, Anor Londo was the exact same deal. Multiple buildings and streets you never got to explore as they were just set dressing to make the place appear like a big sprawling city. Games do that a lot. It was pretty clear that the Ringed City was meant to immitate the good ol' Anor Londo level in the original Dark Souls (and more) and one of the ways it did was by putting a massive part of the city out of reach to make it appear large. Oolacile was the same. Undead burg was the same. Hell, Lost Izalith was the same too. It's a classic Dark Souls level, with all the good and the bad (overwhelmingly more good though). The Ringed City was just long enough. I don't know how much I would've liked it if I had an extra helping of the same tileset. And did you seriously miss the fact that you could 1shot the fat bastards with plunging attacks? That's one of the most beautiful things about the streets level of Ringed City, giving you so many opportunities to do that is going back to the staple Dark Souls design philosophy of levels as puzzles more than successive fights. I missed that about the game, and absolutely loved that they came back to it here.
In his defense he makes a similar criticism of Anor Londo in his DaS 1 critique videos (part 3 I think?). He says Anor Londo was a huge waste of potential, in that not a lot of Anor Londo is used interestingly or can be really explored.
It doesn’t matter if Anor Londo was the same as the Ringed City or any other Soulsborne level. Saying the Ringed City is wasted potential and that there’s not much to explore (what is shown versus what is actually there) is valid criticism.
you DO go thru a lot of Anor Londo tho. I think most people forget, because they bonfire thru to the hub, but there's a bit winding path to get from where the demons drop you before you get to the hub, with giant sentinels to fight the whole way
The only souls game that does a city justice would have to be Bloodborne, Every time I see a beautiful city like that in a game and you only get to explore like two streets and a house I get sad. Irithyll was pretty good in DS3 and Lothric at least a lil bit better than Ringed city. Don't know too much about Anor Londo on DS1 though...
@@mooseot Riding it twice is faster than using the lever and then only riding it down - if you end up killing Midir, you have lost less than thirty extra seconds
I feel like the idea of the Harald Knights in the street part of the Ringed City is to force you to look for the sidepaths that lead to items. At the end of the sidepath with the spear Ringed Knight and all those ambushing curse pygmies, you get a drop that circumvents all those Harald Knights and get straight into the swamp, but also an NPC Preacher who talks to you before you drop. The other sidepath leads to the Alva invader and Zullie's gear.
When I fought Gael I figured out my weapon staggered on the 3rd hit every time, so I used that knowledge to cancel the 5 hit rapid thing in the first half, and to help in the second half. I’m not sure if this was intentional. Did anybody else use the stagger thing.
For Midir you don't have to ride the elevator down and then up again. Roll through the door while the elevators going down. You're mad about a 30 second run? There's way longer runs to a fog wall in the series.
His biggest complaint is that there's no enemies ahead, and he is forced to wait for all of this. Other areas might have a longer run to the fog wall, but at least there are enemies there to compensate for the wasted time (new londo for example).
basicallyimblind _ some people do, and even if you do not, the enemies presence still challenges you to run a good path or time dodges, so you don't get caught. Run ups without enemies are just boring and needless
4 years later: I have played DS1 and DS3 (in that order) and for me Dark Eater Midir somehow overshadowed all other bosses with the awe i felt and an epic knight on dragon feeling. If classic fantasy video games could be boiled down to one bossfight, it would be this.
I actually love the Gael fight as an ending. It feels really climactic and desperate, the fight itself is one of the most challenging in the game and it literally happens at the end of the world as you fight over the blood for which the series is named. While I think you could definitely see Friede as a harder fight, it would feel weird from a lore perspective and wouldn't be as fitting an end to the series. Also, you can enter the door while the elevator is going down and I like the runback to midir bc there aren't any enemies to deplete your much-needed estus
yeah, i was scratching my head over this one too. Or he could have just killed them with throwing knives. Or is that not "allowed" as melee character. :D Don't know, maybe some people don't enjoy coming prepared to most situations they assume to have to face or so..
Lam Shabalondas To my knowledge there is no clump for curses but there is the cursebite ring which reduces curse buildup. Even as a melee character I never had that issue thanks to the ring. As for the keep swamp I just strolled through and dealt with the poison. It isn't too bad if you don't get whopped by the enemies and a few items in the swamp help reduce the buildup as well. (that mask and a few clumps)
Curse doesn't have a clump, it has purging stones which can unfortunately only be used when hollow. Even when you are hollow, you can only use one per death though. Kind of a design flaw in my opinion.
@@TarvynSero He says he doesn't like using consumables, but yeah, that point is really weak. It's like me complaining that my cupboard is way too small because I refuse to open the doors and just put everything on top of it.
I managed to get the Dark Souls3 season pass for $20 due to a PSN coupon so I played the two DLCs back to back. $20 for the whole thing or $10 for each DLC felt fair to me. Ashes didn't feel low on content to me since I was able to play Ringed City right after. Though I do think $15 for it individually is a rip off. Especially if then you had to wait months for TRC
About the cursing enemies. The game encourages you to use bombs and other consumables throughout the game so they are not that bad. Could have been done better though.
Kaiser Willy Exactly! Is this guy dumb or does he just refuse to adapt to the situation. I thought it was pretty obvious that consumables were meant to be used and, considering that they scale with your stats, they're the most viable they've ever been in Souls.
I agree with a lot of the video, though I don't feel like Ariandel was supposed to come after The Ringed City. From a lore standpoint I think Gael really feels like the end of the series, since you're pretty much some of the very last people left, fighting on the ashes of the world. Can't get much more final than that.
"If attacking the head is the way this was meant to be done then I wish they had made that more clean." The Ancient Wyvern teaches you that the head is a dragon's weak point, which you can use to your advantage during the fight with the Nameless King. Focusing on the Storm Drake's head makes the fight a lot easier. You can only target Midir's head. Hitting his head deals double damage. Going under him to hit his feet/tail triggers high damage attacks that are hard to avoid. Staying in front of him triggers attacks that are easier to avoid and leave his head open to attack after dodging said attacks. How do you think they could have made it more clear? By writting a message before the boss fight telling you to aim for his head? Hell, there was probably a message written by another playing saying exactly that. How much hand holding do you need? Also, in regards to locking on doing more harm than good in some parts of the fight, how do you get through DS3, let alone the whole series, without realizing that? It's an asset but for some of the more aggressive enemies playing unlocked is better. Otherwise your camera flies all over the place. It's your choice to stay locked on and not try to play unlocked and see how that works in comparison.
PunkZombie1300 generally in Dark Souls and other dragon rpgs it’s been understood to avoid the head/tail and aim for the sides. Ancient Wyvern is a one and done. Sihn’s weakpoint is the Spear. Seath’s his tentacle legs. Ancient Dragon you should be attacking his legs. Wyvern his feet. Kalameet his leg/feet. The point is when most of my friends first fought Midir it was understood to avoid the head and go for legs/tail. I don’t think there’s a reason for you to be this upset over his opinion.
But that's a gimmick fight in a very obscure area. That's not nearly enough to overcome the entire series' instruction to stand behind the big scary thing.
@@Robert399 I was in NG+ when i fought this guy, I learned quickly that he would never die if I didn't go for the head with the absurd amount of HP he had and little to know damage to the legs.
Super weird, but I actually found Midir nigh-impossible to beat until I did what I consider to be the weirdest thing I've ever done in a Souls Game - I started naming the boss's attacks after Pokemon attacks. Seriously. Outrage is his berserk frenzy, Dragon Tail is the Tail Swipe, Hyper Beam is the beam attack, Fire Blast and Flamethrower are his ground-flame and straight-forward breath attack, etc. Somehow, this simplified the boss immensely in my mind, allowing me to beat him in one or two tries once I'd logged his attacks.
i actually loved getting through ringed city and realising a huge amount of what you can see from all areas is another area. that realisation that the church of the spear catherdral was always in the skyline, some parts where you can see virtually all the areas.... imo it was one of the better level designs in all of ds3, even better than spending some time looking around in anor londo and seeing all of ithiryl laid out below you. hey i'd always want more streets to explore but i think From nailed the background look combined with areas you actually go to in this one. great review as always, after a couple of hard months im looking forward to sending you some patreon cash as i think i've seen every single video of yours now! don't worry about being too negative - the discussion of flaws is often the really interesting part of critique. thanks for all your videos so far and looking forward to whatever you upload next
Haven't watched it yet. Just wanted to say hi, and thanks for posting a new video so quickly after your previous one. Edit: Just watched it. Funny and insightful as always.
PugsnotDrugs000 When an arrow hits his charecter, the content creator edited in the word, "rekt." Pretty obvious representation of the classic Keyensian definition of humor as laid out in his 1875 book, nerd.
Ben Schaal Whenever the content creator's charecter got hit with an arrow, he edited the word, "rekt," into the video. I think that's funny, don't you?
Jake Islavić it is not that bs compared to having to do that inure run filled with enemies that hit you and In some places can kill you. Nothing is worse than frigid outskirts where the run is outright harder than the boss. A straight path to midir is generous compared to some runs
I just wrote a 1,074 character comment and then realized it was all an irrelevant complaint about this game. Gotta throw that shit in the garbage bin because all I want you to know, Joseph, is that your content is always great. You're very insightful and I appreciate your views even if they're different from mine. I love watching your videos about games I'll never even play because you divide a very clear line for me in knowing when a game is "good" and when I had a "good experience" and I want to thank you for being such a positive influence on people like me. Great moves. Keep it up!
Listening to Joe talk I feel like he doesn't really understand this despite how much he _may_ like it. It's like his personal interpretation and subjective sense of how he *believes* things should be are constantly clashing with author intent this review. He isn't looking at a lot of things objectively and misses the point of much of what the DLC offers.
I don't get people trying to attack Midir's legs, you are supposed to be on his head and locking the camera to there ( not the in-game lock-on), then you will have no camera problems. And don't roll forward when he tries to slash/smash you with his claws, roll backwards because he will expose his head for you to get some free hits.
I know what are you saying but I like that Dark Souls is in rest. They ended on high note and Sekiro is least souls game of all Souls likes. Dark Souls has done it's job.
@@goldenhorse4823 I wasnt giving any opinion about souls game, I was just making a joke. But I would love to have more dark souls game like dark souls 1 or 3. But I would rather if games are not rushed like dark souls 3 was
29:00 in all fairness, you don't have to ride the lift down and then back up again every time. just run face first into the wall with the hole in it while going down :P
I loved the bits of lore revealed in this dlc. It finally expands on the Pigmys, if humans are evil just by nature and the relationship between humans and Gwyn (Darksign). I also liked that Gael serves as a counterpart to Gwyn. Lore wise, this ending provides closure to the story, with humans finally being able to live in peace because of the painting.
@@whatisbestinlife8112 but that doesn't make much sense, since either way you'd still have to sit through the elevator moving 1 1/2 times. If you did it like Joe did for "convenience", you'd press on the elevator, go down, then activate it again and wait for half the elevator for the entrance, to get it to the top floor for "convenience" later. If you do it the other way, you'd just pull the lever and wait for it to surface, ride the elevator for the entrance, you're still riding the elevator for 1 1/2 times. It's dumb oversights like this that really make me question Joes ability as a game critic.
@@Red-nl4lk lol. You're an ignorant jackass. Even if he did it your way it would save him literally no time but it feels better, personally I hate waiting for the elevator, so having the elevator waiting for you, even if it's not actually faster, feels much better. But you're right, it would be the same, so what is your point? And where's the oversight?
I think I miss the point of your reviews. I do enjoy them, but more than half the time is spent just describing the things you do in the game (how the levels are designed and enemies etc.), and its like your opinions are just thrown in to the mix every once and a while. I don't really need an explanation for whats in the game, I've already played it. I want to hear your opinions, because there are long chunks where you just describe the game instead of giving insight about it. Its weird, because at the start of your videos, you mention "don't watch if you haven't played" and then describe everything for the people who HAVE already played. Like, I already know how the boss fights work, and what the levels look like. I just want to know some insight you might have for us.
I know this is old, but here are my thoughts. First, he knows that not everyone who watches has played. He gives a spoiler warning for those who might care, but I know I have watched plenty of his videos for games I haven't played, (and have also stopped a few a couple of minutes in because what came before the spoiler warning was convincing enough that I wanted to experience it myself.) and I'm sure I'm not alone in that. The walk through style is helpful for those viewers. Second, and I think probably the biggest reason, Joseph I think cares a lot about supporting his arguments with facts, and to get that, he needs to provide the raw source material to show he isn't just talking out of his ass. The best and easiest way to do is to be showing concrete examples of what you are talking about. Third, it is probably a helpful way to structure his thoughts in a more general sense, and making sure he doesn't miss saying something that he wants to make note of.
Boyd Monson said it perfectly. He dosent really care for the length of the video, so that’s not a problem. Jordan is very specific in what he talks about and brings up and is a lot less general when he is talking about a mechanic etc. He dosent say “I don’t like BLANK: here is my reason.” He says “I don’t like in this area, where when this enemy attacks, BLANK happens.” If he did not give large context in these huge reviews and critiques where he picks apart every element of the said DLC or game, it would feel like he is rambling and is spurting out random things he did not care for
Gael and Midir are the only bosses in the game that I can fight again and again for hours without getting bored. Especially Gael, his soundtrack is the best in the series in my opinion.
Around 22 min you start talking about what was my major criticism throughout DS3. Basically, a large portion of the game is just about pressing R1/RB at the correct time, and then mashing it until the big nasty is dead. I still really enjoyed DS3, but miss the desperate give and take battles that were all over the place in BB and DS1. Glad to see someone bring it up, and I thoroughly enjoy all of your critiques. Keep up the great work!
All the souls games no matter what you do, you will be using the r1 button a lot. The R2 is just too useless for PVE to really matter. (mainly due to the slow speed and lack of any real returns)
Okay, so my take on the curse-fodder enemies is that, they're not necessarily uninteresting, but curses and petrifications and statuses in the Souls games are generally really badly done. Statuses on your weapons are generally also really badly done. Especially because of the whole bar/build-up nature of it. Completely destroys the natural pacing in the game especially from PVE enemies and nature; and adds up a cumbersome and clunky mechanics, namely dealing with it, since usables aren't really very naturally paced, often locks your character, and the menus aren't very intuitive either and sort of slow to navigate (and if you have no items to deal with it, it feels like a sort of penalty that just eats away at your health or simply kills you with no imminent threat, because the game didn't really present any way to deal with it). I'd rather poison weapons had a sort of, lower initial damage and an added direct and limited damage over time. Basically just splits the damage of say, 200, to 100 on hit and 150 over the next ten seconds, with a faster and larger drain the more times an enemy is hit in a row (and just add the poison as a seperate elemental type of damage too). Will stack and create panic, but more importantly, the whole direct dots presents the receiver a new problem, namely how to deal with it here and now, and not in the after or even before, and presents a higher amount of damage in the future, at the cost of it being in the future. Problem with the status bars that we have now, is also that it often never even procs. Because players that you fight are good enough to dodge enough of your blows to not get hit repeatedly enough for it to proc, and if they do get hit repeatedly, they're dead anyway. Also statuses have different speeds in execution, meaning that some types of afflictions have nigh no threat, since they chip health so slowly. Or you run into an enemy that, through providence and luck has an armor set that for some reason has high enough poison resistance to completely render your weapons useless - that's also a problem I have with the whole resistances and elements in the game. For a game that's centered around you picking whatever weapon you want to use, create your own character in an action-RPG, there's really a lot of rock-paper-scissors in it. I remember fighting the Nameless King the first time. With a lightning weapon. RIP me. And lightning weapons are really great typically because not a lot of enemies have lightning resistances. But you have the problem of the chance of running into bosses and enemies that completely negate your playstyle. Not forces you to adapt, but completely negates. If you don't have the tonnes of crafting materials, souls, and prerequisities to make something new, you're stuck with the one weapon you have. Hint, a level one weapon picked randomly out of my backpack that I might be able to use, will probably be as bad as my lightning +10 weapon. So there really are some bosses that just aren't necessarily difficult in mechanical gameplay, but rather statistically cuts you out. Which, imho, is bad in an *action* RPG, and actually in most games. Since most games don't let you carry a weapon for each encounter (the sheer amount of stuff you have to do in Dark Souls to get more weapons for carrying, spec up to use them, upgrade them, the sheer amount of souls spent on carrying weight, etc) even if they promote doing so. And let's be frank. Who plays Dark Souls like a Swiss army knife, and not an RPG character? There should be elements and resistances. But if you have that, you also need a system that *at least* doesn't cut people out from the equation. One thing is having a higher lightning resistance, another is having basically lightning immunity. But elemental resistances should typically also present a weakness in physical resistance. So it sort of adds up. But then you also needs a higher emphasis on said elements, so there's any PVP reason to focus on any one. But again that's where statistical gameplay wins over Fashion Souls. Nameless King has a moveset that is easy as... Pinwheel. But when you fight him with a lightning weapon (that fucking sucks in lightning damage, and its physical damage is more than quartered), it just feels spongy and sort of like your chosen weapon locks you out of content. It's a balancing act I don't feel like FromSoft has ever been really good at. Except in Bloodborne, but Bloodborne is wildly different, since most enemies simply just deal damage and take damage, and some damage types work better, not worse (some might, but the bosses in Bloodborne in general aren't that elemental, and you also have less elemental play with your weapons overall). Other way is to completely remove elemental effects from weapons. Or basically go the Bloodborne way. Where elemental effects are just elemental effects, and be it fire or electricity, doesn't really matter. The play is elemental or not, and if you plan on going elemental, you deal a lot of damage, in a certain way and it's very niche. But you can still deal a lot of damage as a physical or whatever. You don't feel as much locked out, as you do of another flavour. Statistical play doesn't really work well for a linear game either. And yes, I consider the Soulsborne games linear. You don't have a faction of enemies or players who engage in certain ways of dealing damage, in certain physical areas, that you specialize and come back to. No, you go through all the content, meeting gimmick enemies with gimmick damage now and then. The problematique of preparing for an encounter is ridiculous when encounters are single-dos and the preparation sort of becomes moot. - The headless big ones are just really bad, hands down. Because they're made for that one gimmick. They're bland easy enemies that just feel spongy. They're really made to be killed, in one specific way, and not fought.
After watching your DS3 reviews the main problem I've found is that you're so hung up on DS1 and what you want the game to be, you don't enjoy it for what it is.
im a little late here but this is exactly it. the actual fundamentals, mechanics, and especially boss fights are sssoooo much more consistent in DS3 yet everyone i see judges it solely on the position that "it doesnt have the world depth or inter-connectivity as DS1" well maybe it isn't supposed to man. upon multiple playthroughs it becomes apparent that DS3 is focused more on wide level type areas with many avenues to approach them by rather than just a large sandbox. I feel it's unfair that no one acknowledges how much more consistent this game is in quality compared to the other Souls Games but instead whines about what it lacks.
Zade I feel the same. Similar to bloodborne the faster and more polished combat unlike ds1 and 2 makes me like it more. The combat feels more skillful rather than trying to get past slow and glitchy mechanics. Plus ds3 has some of the best boss fights and in terms of moveset, design, and lore. For one example I felt like the champion gundyr fight was a great duel. I just think some people unfairly judge it because of nostalgia for ds1.
Kinda missing the point. He mentions several times that, as a whole, he enjoys all three games, especially 3, so your statement is incorrect. Plus, his first 5 videos on this channel attempts to fairly address the issues with DS1. Doesn't seem hung up to me. If there was a something he feels the first game did better, it's not a sin to say so.
@@MrMichealHouse my and his statements aren't "incorrect" because as far as im aware neither of us ever said he didn't like the game at all. We never made that claim, not sure where you got that? we were talking about people judging the game more on predisposition than the merit of it's content and saying that the game gets unwarranted criticism and hate for it, not that the person didn't like the game at all.
@@zade8586 Reverse Uno card time, where did I use the word "like"? The man said he doesn't enjoy it for what it is, I said he enjoys all of the games, with its perceived faults and all. Anderson does enjoy the game for what it is. You can enjoy something as a whole, but also be disappointed in/not enjoy 'certain' aspects of it. He is just of the mind that the game has regressed on certain issues, that first game already did well several years before, like his issues with Estus counts and boss animations tells. If a sequel game does something worse than a previous game, which he makes several claims and gives his evidence for, it should be called out. In his main review, 18 minutes in, he even says DS3 has consistently great level design, and that it could be the best of the 3 Souls games since it's so consistently good, even more so than DS1. So even what you about claim about no one acknowledging consistence is disingenuous, at least in the case of Anderson's reviews.
This confirms that you dislike runbacks to bosses that offer no difficulty, so I'm curious why you didn't bring them up in your Dark Souls 1 critique. Towards the beginning of DS1 there are hilariously bad runbacks, including the one to the Taurus Demon and the one to the Bell Gargoyles. They have enemies in those runbacks, but after a few rounds you will have memorized a very consistent path through them all, and it becomes brainless. This is one of Dark Souls 1's biggest weaknesses for me, and I just find it strange that it doesn't get brought up when people praise the first half of the game. It's a major, major hindrance on that first half.
He does bring up in his later Dark Souls critique videos. On OnS Atorias etc. I don't know why he doesn't mention it from the early bosses. However I'd argue Dark Souls 3 should be held more accountable as it had an additional 2 games to improve on. Ds1 had one game and no one really played Demon Souls as their first souls game. So really Ds1 had half a game to improve on.
@Light You won't, if you're a souls veteran. But if that is your first exposure to Souls? Hell yeah you're gonna die, and that increases the chance of people dropping the game.
@Light You absolutely will if you don't know about the crazy i-frames you get from rolling, which new players don't. And the Bell Gargoyles are a major road block for many people. They are one of the most difficult bosses to do a no-hit naked Melee run on because they don't have a pattern you can memorize like with Midir. Go try beating them without magic, summons, or overpowered weapons/armor. Use light armor and a normal sword.
I don’t agree; because the point IS to learn that perfect path to preserve as much healing as possible for the boss. Saying that “it became too easy because I learnt a perfect path” is a bit backwards; your goal is to beat everything including the boss as one big challenge in the limited Estus you have, so developing mastery over the level before the boss is what makes it fun.
These videos are honestly something so speical, and there's no other video that i see posted like yours that gets me as excited to watch some new content. Thanks for the amazing video as always, and I absolutely loved the little "rekt" that you included when you got shot by the exploding arrow. Keep up the great work Joe.
FROM definitely seems to have a problem with letting their "Effect Bars" go down quickly : Be it "Curse" here in DS3, or "Frenzy" in Bloodborne.... .....I really cannot even think why.
Books and games? Woah, this is true passion! Did he mention what books will read? Main saga or also "side stories" like Sword of Destiny or The Last Wish?
Buckle up! If he´s planning to replay Witcher 3 in order to get a full view on the game, he wont release a video for another yea, where he will eventually come out with 3 parts, each consisting of 2h xD
I dont know, you seem like you have to argue against every point. Sometimes you feel like the game could be a little more mysterious and other times you wish it would be straight forward.
Fouad Ali I used to think this way due to blindly thinking if a game was really good, flaws could not be examined and brung up, but I’ve matured a decent amount since I first started watching Jordan and I now know although he does not mention it enough (sometimes) he still regards a game like dark souls 3 to be a great game. He is a critic after all, he critiques. He’s not a shitty review channel that goes “Oh wow BLANK game is so amazing I love it it’s the best game in the BLANK genre I’ve ever seen! 9/10” and the fucking game is the new call of duty
Edwin Lukas that’s the point of being a critic lol, you critique every flaw you see. If you want a review that is just super nice and ignores all flaws go watch ign
@@izan6366 no, nitpicking every single perceived flaws, however inconsequential to the general experience, is *not* the point of being a critic. Maybe stop watching so much shitty youtube "critics" or "reviewers", and you too, can tell the difference between *actual* constructive criticism and pedantic nitpicking. This review is the exact opposite of IGN's reviews, Joseph went out of his way to magnify every single little perceived flaws because he couldn't find any legitimate criticism of the DLC, just to maintain his air of "objectivity". You know, it's possible for something to be just great with little to no flaws.
@@izan6366 But they aren't necessarily flaws. I find myself agreeing with him on all of the highlights of his points, but disagreeing on almost all of his critiques. What does that tell you? It's *OPINION.* Yet as per usual, he presents them as fact. He can't escape the fact that he again feels DS3 falls short for not sucking DS1's dick in level design (even though the interconnectivity of TRC is equal to if not better than the vast majority of DS1), yet he also criticizes the DLC for not being unique enough. He does the same with DS3 enemies, criticizing them for having a weakness that every enemy has had since DS1 (stunlock). I don't get that. It seems unfair and biased for no damn reason at all. His criticism on Midir was much the same. This wasn't a review, it was an opinion formed out of the nostalgic expectations of one fan that he forgot to state as such. And that is simply not what criticism is.
Ik this video is old, but the criticism that Midir doesn't make it obvious enough that you should attack his head doesn't make any sense to me. It's his only lock on point & you can figure out just by hitting his head once then hitting his leg once that it does way more damage. How else do you want this communicated? The game obviously isn't going to give a death screen tip that just says "dragons are weak to blows to the head." I really don't know how else they can communicate it through gameplay more than they already did
Still to this day I hold that the Ringed City is the worst of the Fromsoft Souls DLCs. Honestly, worse than the base game even. Gael is great, Twin Demons is my fav boss in the Souls series. Everything else ranges from mid to bad. Midir for example is the worst of the DLC dragons. Kalameet and Sinh were both more fun to fight. The swamp sections were barren, empty, boring, and unnecessarily large. Also wholly forgettable, unlike the between-boss areas of every other Fromsoft dlc. The Ringed City isn't bad by any means but it's the worst of the DLCs. I think in big part because of all the complaints they got about Ariandel being "too short" (in truth it wasn't too short it was just too expensive for what it provided).
Gael Fight for me was absolutely awesome. It does to me, exactly what you talked about in your "Little Nightmares" Review, when a game just clicks with you and you feel it? That fight did a similar thing for me right from the start, and I love it everytime I play it, its just a shame that you have to go through the whole game to play it once :(
After spending nearly 12 hours to kill Midir, I went back to DS1 because I'd never done the DLC and I was expecting Kalameet to be just as hard. Ended up one-shotting Kalameet. I call Midir a true dragon boss done right.
i struggled more with Gael than i did with Midir. Blind playthrough with only +4 estus i think midir took me 1hour maybe a bit longer. Gael took me nearly 4, i finally broke and looked up the bone shard locations to get my estus flask to +8
You've got some really great stuff, especially you're Fallout video and look forward to see more but there's one thing I think you're wrong about, Ashes is intended to be played first, not TRC. Gael is meant to be interacted with before you start TRC though of course I can't say that for a fact(Story-wise there's really not alot of things that can be stated as a fact other than it's foundation but even that can be twisted to a certain extent) but it really seems like they intended for you to meet Gael, learn of his mission, follow in his footsteps - that way when he fails, like he already expected to, you can finish what he started.
It’s a side mission that you don’t need to do in order to complete the DLC, so I think he is justified to not mention Lapp. But that kinda means mentioning midir was pointless so I don’t know. I’d say he dosent need to say it but you can definitely argue otherwise
@@plugshirt1684 Lapp helps you progress through the catacombs and provides you with a connection to the other souls games, Midir was just an optional dragon with the munchies. This argument goes both ways, bub.
@@jimijenkins2548 it really doesn’t Lapp is an npc while midir is an entire boss it’s like trying to compare the importance of an enemy to an entire area. Not to mention Lapp is also optional as you can just not talk to him plus there are lots of other things to compare to older games than Lapp in the dlc; there is literally an entire area from another game in here.
@@plugshirt1684 The same can be said about Midir, seeing as he is completely optional and has little to no bearing on the story. His boss status doesn't make him any more or less important than my boi patches.
When it comes to Midir, a lot of people make the mistake of thinking the best place to be is underneath him. WRONG. Being underneath him is what gives you all the camera problems. You won't be able to see what he's doing and you'll end up dying a lot. Stay in front of him and 'focus on evasion' before punishing him with a couple R1s or a rolling R2 after your dodge. This gives you a reliable way to attack with screwing up your positioning.
Am I the only one who thinks it's enough dark souls? I mean, it's being a great journey but to me DS3 already had that feeling of "Ok, i've already seen this". Maybe it's because I played all the games but I'd love to see Fromsoft attempting a different project other than trying to exploit the souls genre.
idk a new universe could be good but i dont think from is out of ideas ds3 has the best bosses decent levels and imo the best combat the the series a break should improve the next game but i REALLY want From to make another souls like game
You're not alone and to a certain extent, I think Miyazaki feels the same way. I have no proof about what I'm about to say, but I've always felt like Dark Souls was meant to be a stand alone game and Miyazaki only did a third game to end the story on his own terms. I feel like this is why there is just so much old stuff in Dark Souls 3 since Miyazaki did all he wanted to do with the first game.
I have just finished this DLC finally (I was experiencing souls fatigue and hadn't played in quite some time, but I wanted to play it on NG rather than on NG+ cycles with existing characters). I thought it was ok - stellar bosses but lord did I hate some of the areas. My build was light; I was using the sellsword twinblades my class had started with and a small leather shield for parrying; and I massively struggled with the enemies. Any fight against multiple ring knights meant death pretty much, since unlike in your video footage I could never spam them to stagger but I would always get staggered when my character was so much as tickled - despite wearing medium armor. For me it all comes back to FROM's decision to remove poise. I had taken up a large chunk of my carry weight wearing decent armor that didn't protect me from anything. Fighting multiples here never felt fun because of this. I would get stunlocked by the ganks of murkmen (one tiny area had 3 summoners, a miracle casting knight and what felt like a hundred of these guys and I had to hide in a corridor and bait the knight to do it after dying several times). The angels were fine IMO - I'm a completionist so I found all their effigies to kill, and I liked that these didn't respawn so I could loot the area afterwards. I didn't mind the swamp but I didn't like that it was much easier and more efficient to just run through and collect rather than take the time to kill everything, as every nick of damage I took seemed to drop a full estus charge worth of health even from the weaker enemies - again despite 40 vigor, ring of favor (+3 even when I found it), and medium armor. And the game relishes in throwing 4-5 enemies at you at once. Without a heavy, staggering weapon with sweeping attacks this regularly felt like bullshit. Demon prince was ok and I killed him on my first attempt. First phase was great - they did exactly what you said, one would melee attack while the other telegraphed ranged attacks and it felt fair. However I burned a lot of estus on phase 2 because unlike your experience, my prince spammed the chaos orb meteor shower shite over and over and it became hard to get opportunities to attack without taking massive damage. Midir was a little frustrating because my puny swords couldn't reach his head a lot of the time. I died probably 8-10 times learning the first phase, a couple more thanks to crazy lazor in the 2nd, and then got the kill which was immensely satisfying. I didn't lock on at all after seeing that the camera was going to be bad and it wasn't an issue. I did not bother going for body hits because of the pathetic damage my swords did and his enourmous health bar, but it felt ok given that he is a massive dragon. 1 shot kills with the laser on my huge health pool felt a little bullshit though. I actually fought him first; FROM has conditioned me to look for jumpoff points on elevators and there was a message in front of the illusionary wall. I feel like the run to his boss room helped me though - sometimes a bit of a break is good to cool off after the adrenaline and stress of a long attempt that failed. The fucking half light whatever pvp bullshit was the worst. I didn't realise what it was or I would have done it offline. Australian internet does not go well with PVP in this game, and though I did it on the first try, I spent the entire fight dodging the painting guardian knives and homing soulmass while the invader R1 spammed over and over. He wasn't a very good player, which is the only reason I won, because his swings would connect with me from across the room. Lag is why I don't engage in any of the online content; it is not fun on any level. I managed to pull off a surprise parry on him which he wasn't expecting but I had to hit parry before he'd even swung (I just guessed he would since he was sprint attacking over and over again). Just got the kill with no estus left. Never again. Gael on the other hand was fantastic, a tough callback that I likened, like you, to Artorias and Orphan of Kos. Fantastic fight, took me a few attempts but nothing too crazy to get frustrated (unlike Blackflame Friede who kicked my ass every time I made it to her). I'm glad they didn't give him never ending combos like her. He felt fair and it was a good fight. Sorry for the long post but I wanted to share my experience. I don't mind fights with multiples necessarily and I have never complained about DS2 or manually aiming the camera to crowd control. But dealing this much damage per hit is unmanageable with smaller weapons and often feels extremely unfair. I don't think players should have to change their loadout for a certain area. To me, Souls games have always been about finding a weapon you like then making it work. My twinblades often felt excessive against some bosses that I could just wail on, but then whenever I was fighting anything with a shield (lothric knights, cathedral knights, ringed knights) I couldn't do anything. I had to practice parrying against lothric knights and the black knight with the ultra greatsword for a couple of hours to parry so I had any tool to use at all. Even worse if there were more than one of them. No kick, no stagger, no poise of my own. Not fun. I'm glad to have done it to say that I've completed all the soulsborne content but I don't think I want to do it again; the levels are tedious and frustrating. I will gladly play a bossrush mode if it's ever introduced though (I know there's a mod for PC but I have PS4 and I'm not buying this game again).
I think that your recommendation for the ringed city to have been the direction the base game went with would have been pretty cool, especially from a lore stand point. Let's say that you play as a forlorn soul from the painting, one that has just hollowed and forgotten their past. Outside, Lothric has refused to link the fire, and waits in his bed chamber for the fire to fade. Your job is help the painter paint a new world, an eternal world painted from the dark soul of man, where humanity can flee the age of dark. Gael has already ventured out in search of it, but never returned. He left clues for you, already knowing that by the time he makes the dark soul of man whole again, it will have dried up, and will need his blood. You venture out of the painting to find yourself in the dreg heap, with all the civilisations that have ever existed grinding to dust around you. That can be the tutorial, just like the Asylum. Then, you reach the ringed city, the first city of man, walled off from the world by Gwyn, left to exist for as long as Fillianore's slumber lasts. There, some wacky shenanigans occur, maybe even involving you venturing back into the painting and dealing with father Ariandel and Freide, along with perhaps Sulyvahn, until you find yourself face to face with Fillianore herself back in the ringed city. From there you have two choices, either leave her to her slumber, and embrace the rot, or awaken her, much to the dismay of Midir and Shira. If you chose to awaken her, then you get sent forward in time. The protection that Fillianore's slumber gave has worn off and the ringed city has joined every other civilisation in grinding to dust. The world is nearly complete ash, and Gael is waiting, along with Shira and Midir (or maybe they could be fought earlier idk). You fight Gael, find the pigment, then go back in time somehow (eh?) to when the Fillianore had just awoken, and travel back to the painting, give the pigment to Aria, burn the old painting step into the new, eternal painting painted from the dark soul of man.
32:08 Actually if you've seen Shin Godzilla you'd die to it once and laugh at how it's obvious that From really liked that movie, then never die to it again. I realize this isn't good game design, but it's an obvious reference to that movie nonetheless.
I really enjoy your review. The Cathedral boss fight against the Spears of the Church tho. I feel that the online version of this fight is a great new version of PvP. However, when reviewing the game from a PvE/lore experience standpoint, I would recommend only evaluating this fight based on the experience with the Offline NPC the fight uses: Halflight, Spear of the Church. This is the NPC who uses the Frayed Blade and is a pretty cool fight that is better balanced than most PvP versions.
"It's always sad to see something you love end". See I prefer things to end. Before they degrade. Become diminished overtime. Go out on top. It's not just about the journey. The destination matters to me as well.
Definetely agree with the last part. always feels like a big fuck you when game devs put you in a "massive world" without actually being able to go anywhere.
Midir is amazing if you ask me, he's all about positionning and since the head takes more damage, it's obvious that you should focus it as Midir will give easy to dodge and punish attacks if you stay in front of him... and you're a threat to bosses, they certainly won't let you decide how to fight them, you need to adapt to their fighting style
Firstly I wanna say thanks for making these videos, they're great to watch and what inspired me to pick up these games in the first place. Regarding your final point... I had a similar feeling at the end, but not because we got to see so little of the Ringed City (though I initially thought they'd allow for more exploration as well when I first saw the vista). I was disappointed because in my opinion, they failed to deliver on the whole, "end of the world" bit where you fight Gael. When the egg crumbles and you're met with the decayed, sandy world, I immediately went, "Oh wow, I see why everyone liked this DLC more, they're gonna have you play backwards through the city in this decayed wasteland!" and then I stepped out, fought Gael, and it was over. I think personally that would've been a nice way of extending your exploration of parts of the city without overextending far beyond what would normally be included in DLC. Also yeah, Spear of the Church is bad; I didn't realize until seeing your video that the fight was PVP at all, I just thought that fight had weirdly spotty hit-detection and never really questioned it further.
I feel like gael was more of a final boss for lore while midir was the final boss for pure completionists.
It's pretty much the same as Kalameet from DS1, an optional boss that was there for completion mostly. Midir feels a little more integral than that though, because you unlock a covenant for killing him.
Yes, although I personally didn't like Midir but really fucking loved Kalameet.
First time playing through the Ringed City, I fucking hated Midir and Gael, because they had so much health for no god damn reason. After spending some time observing their movesets a little bit, I started to like them more, especially Gael. But they all have so much god damn health. The Demons Boss fight can go on for so long, because you have to completely deplete 3 fairly large enemy health pools. I thought that part of the difficulty added in the Ringed City really sucked.
mike42192 Exactly, one of my gripes with the Ringed City is that bosses have way too much defense/HP (especially on high NG cycles).
Still, I played both DLCs on NG+3 and I didn't have trouble with Midir nor Gael...but Friede? I hated her.
That's understandable, but the difference between the main game boss fights, like the Crystal Sage or the Abyss Watchers and Friede and Gael is ridiculous. But to be fair, the DLC for Dark Souls 1 was the same way.
I can't believe they decided to give us two more swamp levels before the series ended.
Elden ring: Did you think it was over?
@@enternalking8527 cant wait for elden ring 2 where we get a death blight swamp in the first dungeon
@@manguything6301 and the third and fourth and fifth
@@manguything6301 ye and the area boss will be the godskin trio.
@@Wonkess_Chonkess lmao
I'll take a near minute long run back to Midir over the run back to blue smelter any day.
Garbage run, garbage boss :(
Shaffan the boss ain’t that bad
I recall spending at least a few hours travelling back and forth to remove the enemies completely
@@somedude653 Blueberry? The boss isn't bad in a vacuum. Honestly, Smelter Demon was one of the better bosses IMHO, so mechanically it's not too bad. The problem is that the run-up is probably the worst in the series what with getting sniped by greatbows from enemies completely out of reach of melee characters while the astrologers slow you down and you're rushed by groups of aggressive knights and wizard assassins for, what, 5 or 6 corridors? Then you cross the fog wall and are greeted by a palette swapped version of a main game boss in paid DLC. It's an incredibly BS moment in an otherwise solid DLC.
@@anagoth9 All of the side areas in the Three Crowns DLC were intended as multiplayer areas; IMO, the real issue was not that they existed, but rather that they looked like part of the regular levels, and that you could go through on your own. You can tell that they're all multiplayer levels because all of them give you NPCs to summon at the start of the level, and also all of them have the same gravestone-like structures that feature at the starting shrine area of each DLC level. AFAIK, the intention was that you could put down your summon sign at the beginning of the DLC and thus get summoned into those multiplayer areas even if you didn't have the DLC. I personally think they should have gone one step further and simply made those multiplayer area accessible from the starting zone and allowed even players who didn't have the DLC to access them. They could have served as decent teasers for the DLC that might have induced players who didn't buy them to purchase if they liked the multiplayer level.
As a multiplayer level, the Smelter Demon path is actually pretty good, though you absolutely need multiplayer for it to be anything other that awful. In each area there's a path with a gate, a lever, and enemies that attack after you pull the lever. You're intended to have your allies go in front of the gate, then you pull the lever to let them through, and then beat the enemies. Then your allies can help ambush enemies from the upper path. It's actually a really good idea for a level, I just don't think it's well implemented. The other problem is that it only works in actual multiplayer since the NPC phantoms aren't smart enough to interact with the level as intended. Overall, as someone who doesn't much like multiplayer in the Souls games, I think the multiplayer areas are all a waste of development time that could have been put towards making more good levels. Nevertheless, a lot of people really liked DS2 multiplayer, and I don't think it was inherently a bad choice to cater part of each DLC towards them. I just don't like it personally, and it seems like most people never got the memo that those areas were intended for multiplayer, so they came across a lot worse than the developers intended.
really surprised u didnt mention the dragonslayer armor fight, which felt like "here is ur armor set that u wanted from the base game"
Nothing really but its a nice little gift wrapped in a bow tie :
You get to face the boss again without the butterflys in a new arena and you get its Armour.
That’s exactly what it was haha
Wait, can't you get the Dragonslayer armour set in the base Dark Souls 3 game? You get it after fighting the Nameless King boss
Ora Saikatsu that’s called Dragonslayer set, Ornstein’s from DaS. The one they mean is the Dragonslayer’s IRON armor which belongs to the dragonslayer armor from base game DaS 3
They should've thrown in the set Yhorm has too
Can we just take a sec and appreciate that Joseph took the time to play fashion souls, dress his character as Rocky, give him a Rocky training montage complete with punching meat and climbing stairs just for visual reference?
Was only listening to this while playing. This made me wind back the video - cheers
No that shit is so easy to do
@@KK-bt6nc it's not about to difficulty, it's about attention to detail.
Hector Carrillo yeah most people will show something just semi related
I was searching for this exact comment!
You did miss the the point of the large headless monsters. At 14:30 when they're first introduced, the monster jumps down from the top of the stairs. It shows the player that there is a staircase you can run up to do a plunging attack. If the player does just that, a unique animation will play and you will do thousands of damage.
Everywhere these monsters are located, there is a vertical component of the map. You are intended to lure the monsters to certain areas, so you can do a plunging attack for a one shot kill.
This, most player will find the group of 6 to be challenging. I think Joseph anderson is just better at the game than more casual players.
You don't really need to be good to beat all 6, you just need to have a little patience and implement what the series has taught you since the beginning: lure enemies away from the pack and kill them one by one. I honestly didn't even consider using a plunging attack until I had already gotten a rhythm for doing what I described above.
I think the player needed to be introduced to the monster by being given a change to do a drop attack to begin with before the monster aggros. Not the other way around.
Than he could whine that it was too obvious and it insulted his high intelligence. Nitpicking is a very easy thing to do, my friend.
that's just making an easy enemy even easier
Gael is meant to end out a playthrough. Gael leaves you the messages, and leaves scraps of his cloak near hard to find locations that are required to progress.Knowing Gael's lore greatly improves the fight.Gael is meant to be a friend, and dueling him is meant to give off a similar feeling to the Gherman fight.
The "Abyss Corpses" are Murkmen.The Humanities were Soul Dregs.The fat blokes were Harald Knights.
And, the Demon Prince is the last demon.When you kill him you kill an entire race.
THE LOCUSTS ARE TALKING ABOUT NPCS YOU PILLOCK
The small men are Pygmys
No. The Ringed City is the final piece of Dark Souls content ever as confirmed by Miyazaki himself, or at least until someone wants to do something with it.
I completely disagree with you in the order thing, both the dlc order and the dragon. I am 100% sure painted world is suposed to go first, youre suposed to meet gael when he has not been consumed by his quest, you travel to the end of time to stop him and retroactively are able to save the painted world by gathering the blood. Similar to killing the soul of cinder/gwyn adn having the choice to relight the flame you get the choice to go back to the past and give the blood to the painter, it is a meaningless menu in terms of mechanics and doesnt really give you a big cutscene or anything but it is a meaningful choice your character can make, sort of like finishing the poem that is the lore.
That said I agree with you that 2 DLC packs were not the plan from the start I believe both DLCS were 1 originally but they were still in this order, where you kill Friede way before Gael.
I think he was pulling hard there, trying to justify his own twisted logic, made him seem a more than a little conceited, which was something I've been picking out in his other videos.
I think his logic is that the lore was altered in order to fit the new format, in which case, Gael may not even have been a boss fight.
@@niteowl2397 Gael is the one who starts the painted world? He is clearly the most important character in both the DLCs. Just because he isn't some flashy black flame engulfed twin scythe wielding badass doesn't make him any less important just because y'all edge lords say so. Gael has been there through it all and outlived gods. He symbolizes the history of the souls trilogy.
If you play The Ringed City before the Ashes of Ariandel, you see a world that's doomed to die, then you prevent another world from suffering the same fate. In this context, you're trying to prevent Ariandel from suffering the same fate of the Ringed City.
@@davidhong1934 In AoA don’t you bring upon the death of the painted world since after father ariandel resurrected Friede, he caused flame to spread throughout the entire painting, thus letting it burn away.
>The turtle clerics are a fun enemy
No.
@Mohammed I liked them too, dodging through all of the damage spots on the ground while fighting the ringed knight was a cool twist
Agree,
No.
Unique? Sure
Fun? Fuck no
OOOOOOOOOH
Dog cleric?
20:05 "cryptic npcs that tell you about the bosses you'll be fighting" their not talking about bosses silly, fear not the dark my friend, and let the feast begin.
6:31 FromSoftware said in an interview before Ringed city was released that they were figuring out where to put the DLC entrance for people who did not buy Ashes of Ariandel and they ended up placing it in the Kiln of the First flame. To me this seems to suggest that Ashes of Ariandel was meant to be done first since the beginning.
I know I'm two years late, but finishing ashes takes you to the ringed city. So it was pretty obvious
I think, the idea of headless guys is that you don't necessarily kill them in staight fight, but try to plundge attack them, since it have unique animation and require only one hit to kill. In the Ring City itself I just ran to bridge and dropped on them whenever possible, found it more enjoyable, instead of fighting them head to head
it doesn't always one shot them though.
I see what you did there :)
It depends if you are going for a strength or a dex build, or quality build, or if you are on NG+ etc. With a high damage strength build you do, but with a dex weapon it usually a little bit of health left, just enough that you need an extra hit.
I always shot them with arrows. The arrows would almost always hit the weak spot on their head, so they would go down fast.
Joss Ricketts I found plunging them more frustrating since it didn't work most of the time, as they aren't immobile.
With the lore implications and the general difficulty, I think you're supposed to do Ashes first. Let's break it down. First off, all through the Dreg Heap, Gael is helping you. He left tatters of his cloak, and later he left messages for you. Because you were originally supposed to follow just his cloak, that means you HAVE to have known who Gael was before going into the dreg heap, if you want to have any idea what's going on. Furthermore, Gael helps you in the first boss fight, and also helps you against Friede. It fits his story more that he would want to see Friede killed first before hunting down the dark soul, as he needs his lady to be able to paint first, before he can even think about getting the pigment. While yes, Friede is a 3 phase boss fight with 3 health bars and radically different battles, Gael has enough health to be 3 health bars. And each phase is extremely different, and broken up exactly at 1/3 intervals on his health bar.
also the fact that he is there as a summon for friede but not if you do ringed city first
And beating ashes of Ariandel opens leads directly to the ringed city, it's the only way to access it before beating the rest of the game
Friede is only ever harder because phase 2 is a gank and some people(Especially me) might have trouble with that. Gael is the harder duel boss and Midir is even harder than that.
@@HiHello-wb9yq Friede is harder not because of the gank but because it's an endurance fight with three different encounters.
@@HiHello-wb9yq Midir is also ridiculously overhyped as a boss battle.
dude wtf... u must be writing hundreds of pages for your videos. Absolutely amazing man! So underrated.
Fancy seeing you here
Review darksouls funny china man
true but he still just a casul
“Before 2020” OOF
lol yeah.
We got Sekiro tho
Not the same, but a good souls-like nonetheless
Sekiro was well worth it. Probably my favorite FromSoft combat, but I didn't play Bloodborne yet.
KenoxProductions if Elden Ring can even carry over one aspect of Sekiro I’ll die a happy man
@@justinchalifoux4424 I feel like eldenring will have the look of dark souls and have the combat of sekiro
I like the part when he says it's important to time your dodges to avoid taking damage from the angel's laser but all I can see is roll spamming.
I mean that "strategy" will carry you through 95% of DS3 tbh.
Which is one of my biggest problems with it
cpt Kamina yeah my biggest problem is how little stamina rolling takes, making fights less methodical
@@sharptoaster2142 exactly. Once you actually understand that, there is literally no reason to use a shield
@Steven Murphy Strong disagree.
I think shields in DS 1 and 2 are okay to use but less fun, still good that they are there for different playstyles.
Shields in ds3 are useless though, I agree with that. Though I think that's not a good thing.
NK is one of the only bosses that require you to not spam roll, true. Which is why it is always at the top of all "most difficult" lists. Because it actually does take some learning.
@Genocide is fun Yea, all that works, I've done and seen it
Why didn't you talk about the amazingness that is the Lapp questline?
He probably missed it.
@Linda Niemkiewicz fanservice mostly
There’s a reason he’s known as a notorious casual.
@@Wuuff Nah it was a final farewell from the character that's been in every soulsborne game, and it's the only time when you get to be his genuine friend. Fuck Solaire and Siegward. Lapp is my main guy now.
@@aplix747 HERESY!
Ashes is definately meant to go first, at the end of it is where you're sort of given your mission to find out about Gael's quest for the dark soul. Then you go through it and give the painter the pigment.
There's even a bonfire in friede's boss room that takes you to the dreg heap.
There's also the fact that the two dlc's aren't that close in theme, so how would they be two parts of one big bundle?
@@melonmazing515 except they are very close in theme.
Melonmazing they are nearly connected in theme
Melonmazing don’t you remember what Gael says before u fight him?
The good thing is, the devs thought about every way you can enter the DLCs: if you go to the Ashes after Usurpation of the Flame ending of the base game, Friede and her henchman call you "The Lord of Hollows", referencing your more complicated route; if you go to the Dreg Keep before Ashes, instead of seeing Gael in the Chapel, you only see the piece of the painting on the altar, as Joseph mentioned. Of course, the most obvious path is [any point of the main campaign from Lothric Castle on] -> Ashes -> Ringed City, but I wouldn't say any other path ruins the experience, it just feels different... and Uncle Gael might not appear to help you with Friede. :(
25:10 also, people call it the artorias throw, while, nobody mentioned that the Penetrator did it before artorias
Artorias said the joke louder
@@juniperrodley9843 artorias is like the class clown who stole a funny joke from the quiet kid that no one heard.
There's a neat shortcut to kill the 1st angel in earthen peek, just head towards the hut on the cliff edge and drop around it to the right on to a branch.
The Harald knights can be killed quickly with a plunge attack, they usually give you access to do that for each knight.
I thought that was the way you were supposed to do it, drop down kill first angel then go up to the swamp kill second
"shocked if there's no DS4/reboot before 2020"
Welp
They did remake Demon’s Souls
@@vati90 Not Dark Souls, not a reboot, and not *before* 2020... but yeah... that did happen
elden ring is supposed to be similar to dark souls maybe that counts?
@@mothethemothe4948 Elden Ring is probably coming out in 2025 tho
@@nicolasriveros943 most likely next year...
Whilst I agree that different skill levels is an inherent issue for Halfllight, this is the reason that in order to unlock the covenant you must defeat Midir. In my opinion this is why Midir had such a large health pool. You must prove that you can consistently dodge attacks for a prolonged period of time before you can earn the right to become a dark souls boss. You have to show you have the mettle to take that role.
"whilst"
@just dont Boy why did you spam this everywhere? Having high resistance and having high HP are indistinguishable to the average Joe, they both mean that they take a lot of hits to kill. I'm a Midir apologist myself, but saying that they're not the same thing is... well it "just isn't true."
Just hit Midir's face...
how do I know this entire upload isn't just a subtle justification for showing everyone how hard you wrecked Jesus on netplay
lukewarmtoast wat
explain
One of the players he fights during the Spear of the Church boss fight in named Jesus
The lore is great and gael really is finally boss due to him being the embodiment of the dark soul
Are you talking about Skyrim?
Yes, the embodiment of the dark soul is from Skyrim - not Dark Souls.
Lol
"It's so easy to stunlock enemies in this game that one hit is usually all you need"
Has 99 endurance and a straight sword
XD
My thoughts exactly.
That's not exactly why, with UGS class weapons you can just spam the R2 stabbing attack that will literally stagger ANY enemy it hits. Then keep charged R2ing until they die, and the stamina regen will actually break even.
Jo and critisism dont go well together
I used Yhorms Great Machete so the Ronged Knights were easy for me. Just hit them and stunlock, or heavy attack and pancake them to the ground comically.
The dual greatsword ones need heavy attacks though to interrupt their attacks.
Gael is one of my favorite bosses in the soulsborne series because it feels fun dodging all his moves and he reminds me of orphan of kos (which is also one of my favorites).
That moment when you did the entire dreg heap without knowing you could kill the angels.
The worst part is that I saw those monster that are connected to the angels but ignored them since they weren’t attacking, big facepalm.
After 5 years I went and played this dlc, wow it was great. I look forward to Joseph's elden ring review in 2031.
He worked faster than expected...
@@pofi1957 IKR glad he took a break from Witcher for it.
Midir's laser attacks looks a lot like the new Godzilla's laser breath.
DirtyMack Shin Godzilla? Definitely
Oh you mean American Godzilla. Which is good, but Shin is arguably the best besides the original. If you haven’t seen it, it’s an absolute must.
@@Dravianpn02 it's probably Shin Godzilla.
midir is an amygdala in an enormous gorilla suit
Both Swamps were the biggest disappointments.
I thought Ringed City will be a vine, overgrown forgotten City/Castle you can explore.
Sadly, only in the beginning that was the case. The Rest was swamp and a little Dungeon.
Ringed City was maybe the most original part of Dark Souls 3, and it literally had 2 swamps in it. This is confirmation that the series had a good run, it needs to be over now.
@@thomasmaddox8688 wow you really shitting on the 2nd best dlc from has ever done. also irythyll was a city you could explore why would they do the same thing again. opinions i guess but idk why ds3 gets soo much hate. its a fantastic game.
@@Oknahidwin "irythyll was a city you could explore"
I wouldn't call running in a linear path to a bonfire and then running again to the boss exploring. Irythyll is one of the worst cases of wasted potential in this game. ever play dark souls 1? compare the first area in that game to irythyll.
also are you kidding with this ? "why would they do the same thing again" yeah being able to explore a massive interconnected city is a good thing but why would fromsoft ever do that again lol
@@amintron Here after elden ring, leyndell exists now.
28:20
Midir does not have a "gigantic health bar". I see this parroted all the time when Midir is discussed and it just isn't true. On NG he has a total of 15,860HP, compared to Gael's 14,985HP. That's a difference of only 875HP. Not a big deal.
The real issue here, and why so many people fervently believe that Midir is tanky as all hell, is that he has more immunities and resistances and he's so mobile. Most of his fight is about positioning, so you spend the majority of your time running around or waiting for him to do something, meaning you aren't dealing damage which means the fight takes longer that it would with any other boss simply by virtue of him having the zoomies.
Also because his legs and arms (the areas most new players target) deal way less damage than his head.
Yeah, I had a really hard time doing an INT build and learning he resists almost everything that scales off of INT except for a mist spell that can hurt you.
So you are telling me that he doesnt have more HP to take down, but that the immunitys give him more hits to take him down making his HP longer than avarage HP? As in Longer HP than normal? The argument in no shape or form is wrong and putting your 200iq glasses on and snorting on your technicalities doesnt change that. But Midir is nothing short of a joke, Tanky HP no difficulity.
@@_NutcasE_ That's not how resistances and HP work.
^NutcasE^ He is tanky but his HP is reasonable because he is a fucking gigantic dragon, or did you expect killing a dragon in just a few hits? And also the other problem is that most players fight him by hitting the legs and tail when actually the best way to fight him is hitting his head, which takes double the damage. He is a great boss and the best dragon boss of the series for sure.
Really shows how different people find bosses - Midir is super well telegraphed in my opinion
As much as i like the DS franchise, i really hope it actually is the end of the series(or at least a major break from it), we need something fresh from From Software, i also hope it will not end up as a Playstation exclusive :/
Code Vein isnt going to be an exclusive and it is their next IP check it out
Code Vein is not made by From
Zach Warnick FromSoft isn't making Code Vein
It's being developed by devs who made "God eater." They are not being made by From Software.
BALOO Pretty sure From and Sony have a contract for 3 exclusives (I don't remember if Demon's and Bloodborne are included there).
You have a weird infatuation with fighting multiple enemies in this series.
And about the last part... dude, Anor Londo was the exact same deal. Multiple buildings and streets you never got to explore as they were just set dressing to make the place appear like a big sprawling city. Games do that a lot. It was pretty clear that the Ringed City was meant to immitate the good ol' Anor Londo level in the original Dark Souls (and more) and one of the ways it did was by putting a massive part of the city out of reach to make it appear large. Oolacile was the same. Undead burg was the same. Hell, Lost Izalith was the same too. It's a classic Dark Souls level, with all the good and the bad (overwhelmingly more good though).
The Ringed City was just long enough. I don't know how much I would've liked it if I had an extra helping of the same tileset.
And did you seriously miss the fact that you could 1shot the fat bastards with plunging attacks? That's one of the most beautiful things about the streets level of Ringed City, giving you so many opportunities to do that is going back to the staple Dark Souls design philosophy of levels as puzzles more than successive fights. I missed that about the game, and absolutely loved that they came back to it here.
poiumty Nobody looks at the areas of DS1.......
In his defense he makes a similar criticism of Anor Londo in his DaS 1 critique videos (part 3 I think?). He says Anor Londo was a huge waste of potential, in that not a lot of Anor Londo is used interestingly or can be really explored.
It doesn’t matter if Anor Londo was the same as the Ringed City or any other Soulsborne level. Saying the Ringed City is wasted potential and that there’s not much to explore (what is shown versus what is actually there) is valid criticism.
you DO go thru a lot of Anor Londo tho. I think most people forget, because they bonfire thru to the hub, but there's a bit winding path to get from where the demons drop you before you get to the hub, with giant sentinels to fight the whole way
The only souls game that does a city justice would have to be Bloodborne, Every time I see a beautiful city like that in a game and you only get to explore like two streets and a house I get sad. Irithyll was pretty good in DS3 and Lothric at least a lil bit better than Ringed city. Don't know too much about Anor Londo on DS1 though...
Joseph riding down elevators twice to get to midir is what I come here for
He rode it twice so he can reset it. If he jumps off on the way down, he'll have to pull the lever and wait more if he dies
That's planning for failure @@sibanbgd100, even dumber than regular planning. :)
@@mooseot Riding it twice is faster than using the lever and then only riding it down - if you end up killing Midir, you have lost less than thirty extra seconds
@@mskyba Yeah, I get it... I was just never smart enough to think of that lol.
My stoned ass just wanted to get that Rick and Morty ref in there... :)
@@mooseot Hope for success and expect failure
I feel like the idea of the Harald Knights in the street part of the Ringed City is to force you to look for the sidepaths that lead to items. At the end of the sidepath with the spear Ringed Knight and all those ambushing curse pygmies, you get a drop that circumvents all those Harald Knights and get straight into the swamp, but also an NPC Preacher who talks to you before you drop. The other sidepath leads to the Alva invader and Zullie's gear.
When I fought Gael I figured out my weapon staggered on the 3rd hit every time, so I used that knowledge to cancel the 5 hit rapid thing in the first half, and to help in the second half. I’m not sure if this was intentional. Did anybody else use the stagger thing.
I sure abused that to death :D
"Over FOUR. THOUSAND. HP"
3159
You forgot to add up the damage from the initial stab tho
@@raviencrafttv4375 Alright, 3159 + 390 is 3549. What's your point there?
@@senseweaver01 + the free hits you get in while he’s reeling
@@BlazeTaleo Then it's no longer part of the attack. It's still less than 4,000
he even has a mid-fight cinematic for when he *increases his power level*
For Midir you don't have to ride the elevator down and then up again. Roll through the door while the elevators going down. You're mad about a 30 second run? There's way longer runs to a fog wall in the series.
Weak argument. "It's worse in other areas that means you can't complain about it here!"
Alex S if you don’t ride it up again, you have to pull the lever to bring it back up to go back down if you died. So the second always get added.
His biggest complaint is that there's no enemies ahead, and he is forced to wait for all of this. Other areas might have a longer run to the fog wall, but at least there are enemies there to compensate for the wasted time (new londo for example).
@@ethanhui6986 who kills enemies when they are running to a boss?
basicallyimblind _ some people do, and even if you do not, the enemies presence still challenges you to run a good path or time dodges, so you don't get caught. Run ups without enemies are just boring and needless
4 years later:
I have played DS1 and DS3 (in that order) and for me Dark Eater Midir somehow overshadowed all other bosses with the awe i felt and an epic knight on dragon feeling. If classic fantasy video games could be boiled down to one bossfight, it would be this.
I actually love the Gael fight as an ending. It feels really climactic and desperate, the fight itself is one of the most challenging in the game and it literally happens at the end of the world as you fight over the blood for which the series is named. While I think you could definitely see Friede as a harder fight, it would feel weird from a lore perspective and wouldn't be as fitting an end to the series. Also, you can enter the door while the elevator is going down and I like the runback to midir bc there aren't any enemies to deplete your much-needed estus
The Rocky montage was glorious.
69 likes; nice
you can use items known as 'clumps' which can heal certain effects like curse and poison.
yeah, i was scratching my head over this one too. Or he could have just killed them with throwing knives. Or is that not "allowed" as melee character. :D
Don't know, maybe some people don't enjoy coming prepared to most situations they assume to have to face or so..
Lam Shabalondas To my knowledge there is no clump for curses but there is the cursebite ring which reduces curse buildup. Even as a melee character I never had that issue thanks to the ring. As for the keep swamp I just strolled through and dealt with the poison. It isn't too bad if you don't get whopped by the enemies and a few items in the swamp help reduce the buildup as well. (that mask and a few clumps)
Curse doesn't have a clump, it has purging stones which can unfortunately only be used when hollow. Even when you are hollow, you can only use one per death though. Kind of a design flaw in my opinion.
@@TarvynSero He says he doesn't like using consumables, but yeah, that point is really weak. It's like me complaining that my cupboard is way too small because I refuse to open the doors and just put everything on top of it.
Joseph Anderson is criminally underrated.
Dpaje I would of never given Dark Souls 1 a second chance, if not for Joseph.
reeeeee
The Ethical Pixel If you want fast reviews, almost anyone else does that. What I love about Joe is he takes his time and it shows.
Dpaje Ummm no. Joseph Anderson is criminally underappreciated.
I wouldn't say he's underrated since most of the people who do know about him rate him pretty highly, he's just not that well known.
I managed to get the Dark Souls3 season pass for $20 due to a PSN coupon so I played the two DLCs back to back. $20 for the whole thing or $10 for each DLC felt fair to me. Ashes didn't feel low on content to me since I was able to play Ringed City right after. Though I do think $15 for it individually is a rip off. Especially if then you had to wait months for TRC
i was able to get the fire fades edition for somewhere around $20 in used so it was an awesome bargain for me
About the cursing enemies. The game encourages you to use bombs and other consumables throughout the game so they are not that bad. Could have been done better though.
I think you are intended to use bows on them, which is fair considering its a similar concept to the way Shulva forces you to use a bow to traverse.
Kaiser Willy Exactly! Is this guy dumb or does he just refuse to adapt to the situation. I thought it was pretty obvious that consumables were meant to be used and, considering that they scale with your stats, they're the most viable they've ever been in Souls.
25:12 - btw Demon's Soul's Penetrator did that throw first. :)
Tar vyn Only true Souls fans know that Penetrator did it first.
Walamonga 1313 i love that boss so much that I actually attempted beating him with a broken dragons Longsword
Artorias improved it greatly though.
@@shades4385 still not first tho
@@tellyheadlol4258 Yeah but he made it actually good. Plus, Artorias is just a much more iconic character all around.
Midir after his tail kills you:
'YOU SHOULD HAVE GONE FOR THE HEAD"
I agree with a lot of the video, though I don't feel like Ariandel was supposed to come after The Ringed City. From a lore standpoint I think Gael really feels like the end of the series, since you're pretty much some of the very last people left, fighting on the ashes of the world. Can't get much more final than that.
Midir is probably one of the coolest designs of any dragon imo. The first time he did the lazer beam fire breath blew me away, he's so cool.
"If attacking the head is the way this was meant to be done then I wish they had made that more clean."
The Ancient Wyvern teaches you that the head is a dragon's weak point, which you can use to your advantage during the fight with the Nameless King. Focusing on the Storm Drake's head makes the fight a lot easier. You can only target Midir's head. Hitting his head deals double damage. Going under him to hit his feet/tail triggers high damage attacks that are hard to avoid. Staying in front of him triggers attacks that are easier to avoid and leave his head open to attack after dodging said attacks. How do you think they could have made it more clear? By writting a message before the boss fight telling you to aim for his head? Hell, there was probably a message written by another playing saying exactly that. How much hand holding do you need?
Also, in regards to locking on doing more harm than good in some parts of the fight, how do you get through DS3, let alone the whole series, without realizing that? It's an asset but for some of the more aggressive enemies playing unlocked is better. Otherwise your camera flies all over the place. It's your choice to stay locked on and not try to play unlocked and see how that works in comparison.
PunkZombie1300 generally in Dark Souls and other dragon rpgs it’s been understood to avoid the head/tail and aim for the sides. Ancient Wyvern is a one and done. Sihn’s weakpoint is the Spear. Seath’s his tentacle legs. Ancient Dragon you should be attacking his legs. Wyvern his feet. Kalameet his leg/feet. The point is when most of my friends first fought Midir it was understood to avoid the head and go for legs/tail. I don’t think there’s a reason for you to be this upset over his opinion.
@@consecrated2718 The game locks-on on the head and only his head. It's like an orgy evidence it being the weak point
Midir be like
You should have gone for the head
But that's a gimmick fight in a very obscure area. That's not nearly enough to overcome the entire series' instruction to stand behind the big scary thing.
@@Robert399 I was in NG+ when i fought this guy, I learned quickly that he would never die if I didn't go for the head with the absurd amount of HP he had and little to know damage to the legs.
22:22 Aww, the little "REKT" when the arrow hit you.
Super weird, but I actually found Midir nigh-impossible to beat until I did what I consider to be the weirdest thing I've ever done in a Souls Game - I started naming the boss's attacks after Pokemon attacks.
Seriously. Outrage is his berserk frenzy, Dragon Tail is the Tail Swipe, Hyper Beam is the beam attack, Fire Blast and Flamethrower are his ground-flame and straight-forward breath attack, etc. Somehow, this simplified the boss immensely in my mind, allowing me to beat him in one or two tries once I'd logged his attacks.
With Kalameet I talked to him like a dog the whole fight, only thing that would sooth my nerves.
i actually loved getting through ringed city and realising a huge amount of what you can see from all areas is another area. that realisation that the church of the spear catherdral was always in the skyline, some parts where you can see virtually all the areas.... imo it was one of the better level designs in all of ds3, even better than spending some time looking around in anor londo and seeing all of ithiryl laid out below you.
hey i'd always want more streets to explore but i think From nailed the background look combined with areas you actually go to in this one.
great review as always, after a couple of hard months im looking forward to sending you some patreon cash as i think i've seen every single video of yours now! don't worry about being too negative - the discussion of flaws is often the really interesting part of critique.
thanks for all your videos so far and looking forward to whatever you upload next
I have been waiting for this for so long. But I am glad for your long process, it really aids the quality. Thank you.
Haven't watched it yet. Just wanted to say hi, and thanks for posting a new video so quickly after your previous one.
Edit: Just watched it. Funny and insightful as always.
Josh Zuby funny?
PugsnotDrugs000 When an arrow hits his charecter, the content creator edited in the word, "rekt." Pretty obvious representation of the classic Keyensian definition of humor as laid out in his 1875 book, nerd.
Ben Schaal Whenever the content creator's charecter got hit with an arrow, he edited the word, "rekt," into the video. I think that's funny, don't you?
Josh Zuby oh never noticed that, I usually have his reviews on in the back as a kind of podcast.
29:39
I know you have experienced Dark Souls 2, there are longer and less interesting boss runs. Especially in the DLC
He never said that this only happens in DS3, just that this is bs
Jake Islavić it is not that bs compared to having to do that inure run filled with enemies that hit you and In some places can kill you. Nothing is worse than frigid outskirts where the run is outright harder than the boss. A straight path to midir is generous compared to some runs
I just wrote a 1,074 character comment and then realized it was all an irrelevant complaint about this game. Gotta throw that shit in the garbage bin because all I want you to know, Joseph, is that your content is always great. You're very insightful and I appreciate your views even if they're different from mine. I love watching your videos about games I'll never even play because you divide a very clear line for me in knowing when a game is "good" and when I had a "good experience" and I want to thank you for being such a positive influence on people like me. Great moves. Keep it up!
Thanks Danny :)
Joseph Anderson u r a tru paparoni!
Thank goodness Leyndell from Elden Ring was that Ringed City you wanted to explore.
Listening to Joe talk I feel like he doesn't really understand this despite how much he _may_ like it. It's like his personal interpretation and subjective sense of how he *believes* things should be are constantly clashing with author intent this review. He isn't looking at a lot of things objectively and misses the point of much of what the DLC offers.
I don't get people trying to attack Midir's legs, you are supposed to be on his head and locking the camera to there ( not the in-game lock-on), then you will have no camera problems. And don't roll forward when he tries to slash/smash you with his claws, roll backwards because he will expose his head for you to get some free hits.
0:14 "I'll also be shocked if we don't see something about dark souls 4 or a reboot before 2020"
This comment didn't age well
I know what are you saying but I like that Dark Souls is in rest. They ended on high note and Sekiro is least souls game of all Souls likes. Dark Souls has done it's job.
@@goldenhorse4823 I wasnt giving any opinion about souls game, I was just making a joke. But I would love to have more dark souls game like dark souls 1 or 3. But I would rather if games are not rushed like dark souls 3 was
@@Lemoncit0 I know. That is why I said: I know what you mean.
Elden Ring is essentially a soft reboot though, or at least a spritual successor. So it didn't really age that poorly.
29:00 in all fairness, you don't have to ride the lift down and then back up again every time. just run face first into the wall with the hole in it while going down :P
@@OllyRoger derp, good point! I think I might have done that for all 50 attempts that damn dragon took.
I loved the bits of lore revealed in this dlc. It finally expands on the Pigmys, if humans are evil just by nature and the relationship between humans and Gwyn (Darksign). I also liked that Gael serves as a counterpart to Gwyn. Lore wise, this ending provides closure to the story, with humans finally being able to live in peace because of the painting.
you didnt just roll through the hidden path halfway up the elevator on the way down instead?
You can do that but then the elevator is not reset for convenience should you die and be coming back down again.
@@whatisbestinlife8112 but that doesn't make much sense, since either way you'd still have to sit through the elevator moving 1 1/2 times. If you did it like Joe did for "convenience", you'd press on the elevator, go down, then activate it again and wait for half the elevator for the entrance, to get it to the top floor for "convenience" later. If you do it the other way, you'd just pull the lever and wait for it to surface, ride the elevator for the entrance, you're still riding the elevator for 1 1/2 times. It's dumb oversights like this that really make me question Joes ability as a game critic.
@@Red-nl4lk lol. You're an ignorant jackass. Even if he did it your way it would save him literally no time but it feels better, personally I hate waiting for the elevator, so having the elevator waiting for you, even if it's not actually faster, feels much better. But you're right, it would be the same, so what is your point? And where's the oversight?
Your reviews have always been extremely analytic and have a lot of work put into them keep up the good work .
I think I miss the point of your reviews. I do enjoy them, but more than half the time is spent just describing the things you do in the game (how the levels are designed and enemies etc.), and its like your opinions are just thrown in to the mix every once and a while. I don't really need an explanation for whats in the game, I've already played it. I want to hear your opinions, because there are long chunks where you just describe the game instead of giving insight about it.
Its weird, because at the start of your videos, you mention "don't watch if you haven't played" and then describe everything for the people who HAVE already played. Like, I already know how the boss fights work, and what the levels look like. I just want to know some insight you might have for us.
jordan4270 you must be fun at parties
I know this is old, but here are my thoughts.
First, he knows that not everyone who watches has played. He gives a spoiler warning for those who might care, but I know I have watched plenty of his videos for games I haven't played, (and have also stopped a few a couple of minutes in because what came before the spoiler warning was convincing enough that I wanted to experience it myself.) and I'm sure I'm not alone in that. The walk through style is helpful for those viewers.
Second, and I think probably the biggest reason, Joseph I think cares a lot about supporting his arguments with facts, and to get that, he needs to provide the raw source material to show he isn't just talking out of his ass. The best and easiest way to do is to be showing concrete examples of what you are talking about.
Third, it is probably a helpful way to structure his thoughts in a more general sense, and making sure he doesn't miss saying something that he wants to make note of.
opinion is like the word racist and sexist now
Boyd Monson said it perfectly. He dosent really care for the length of the video, so that’s not a problem. Jordan is very specific in what he talks about and brings up and is a lot less general when he is talking about a mechanic etc. He dosent say “I don’t like BLANK: here is my reason.” He says “I don’t like in this area, where when this enemy attacks, BLANK happens.” If he did not give large context in these huge reviews and critiques where he picks apart every element of the said DLC or game, it would feel like he is rambling and is spurting out random things he did not care for
joseph: midir has a big health bar
also joseph: *attacks the part of midir that takes tiny damage*
Gael and Midir are the only bosses in the game that I can fight again and again for hours without getting bored. Especially Gael, his soundtrack is the best in the series in my opinion.
Around 22 min you start talking about what was my major criticism throughout DS3. Basically, a large portion of the game is just about pressing R1/RB at the correct time, and then mashing it until the big nasty is dead. I still really enjoyed DS3, but miss the desperate give and take battles that were all over the place in BB and DS1. Glad to see someone bring it up, and I thoroughly enjoy all of your critiques. Keep up the great work!
Mike Romeo but ds1 and bb are the same thing lol.In this game you can use the weapon art and cool moveset too
Mike Romeo That's what all Souls games boil down to, R1 and O.
All the souls games no matter what you do, you will be using the r1 button a lot. The R2 is just too useless for PVE to really matter. (mainly due to the slow speed and lack of any real returns)
Okay, so my take on the curse-fodder enemies is that, they're not necessarily uninteresting, but curses and petrifications and statuses in the Souls games are generally really badly done.
Statuses on your weapons are generally also really badly done. Especially because of the whole bar/build-up nature of it.
Completely destroys the natural pacing in the game especially from PVE enemies and nature; and adds up a cumbersome and clunky mechanics, namely dealing with it, since usables aren't really very naturally paced, often locks your character, and the menus aren't very intuitive either and sort of slow to navigate (and if you have no items to deal with it, it feels like a sort of penalty that just eats away at your health or simply kills you with no imminent threat, because the game didn't really present any way to deal with it).
I'd rather poison weapons had a sort of, lower initial damage and an added direct and limited damage over time. Basically just splits the damage of say, 200, to 100 on hit and 150 over the next ten seconds, with a faster and larger drain the more times an enemy is hit in a row (and just add the poison as a seperate elemental type of damage too).
Will stack and create panic, but more importantly, the whole direct dots presents the receiver a new problem, namely how to deal with it here and now, and not in the after or even before, and presents a higher amount of damage in the future, at the cost of it being in the future.
Problem with the status bars that we have now, is also that it often never even procs. Because players that you fight are good enough to dodge enough of your blows to not get hit repeatedly enough for it to proc, and if they do get hit repeatedly, they're dead anyway. Also statuses have different speeds in execution, meaning that some types of afflictions have nigh no threat, since they chip health so slowly.
Or you run into an enemy that, through providence and luck has an armor set that for some reason has high enough poison resistance to completely render your weapons useless - that's also a problem I have with the whole resistances and elements in the game. For a game that's centered around you picking whatever weapon you want to use, create your own character in an action-RPG, there's really a lot of rock-paper-scissors in it.
I remember fighting the Nameless King the first time. With a lightning weapon. RIP me. And lightning weapons are really great typically because not a lot of enemies have lightning resistances.
But you have the problem of the chance of running into bosses and enemies that completely negate your playstyle. Not forces you to adapt, but completely negates. If you don't have the tonnes of crafting materials, souls, and prerequisities to make something new, you're stuck with the one weapon you have. Hint, a level one weapon picked randomly out of my backpack that I might be able to use, will probably be as bad as my lightning +10 weapon. So there really are some bosses that just aren't necessarily difficult in mechanical gameplay, but rather statistically cuts you out. Which, imho, is bad in an *action* RPG, and actually in most games. Since most games don't let you carry a weapon for each encounter (the sheer amount of stuff you have to do in Dark Souls to get more weapons for carrying, spec up to use them, upgrade them, the sheer amount of souls spent on carrying weight, etc) even if they promote doing so. And let's be frank. Who plays Dark Souls like a Swiss army knife, and not an RPG character?
There should be elements and resistances. But if you have that, you also need a system that *at least* doesn't cut people out from the equation. One thing is having a higher lightning resistance, another is having basically lightning immunity. But elemental resistances should typically also present a weakness in physical resistance. So it sort of adds up. But then you also needs a higher emphasis on said elements, so there's any PVP reason to focus on any one. But again that's where statistical gameplay wins over Fashion Souls.
Nameless King has a moveset that is easy as... Pinwheel. But when you fight him with a lightning weapon (that fucking sucks in lightning damage, and its physical damage is more than quartered), it just feels spongy and sort of like your chosen weapon locks you out of content. It's a balancing act I don't feel like FromSoft has ever been really good at. Except in Bloodborne, but Bloodborne is wildly different, since most enemies simply just deal damage and take damage, and some damage types work better, not worse (some might, but the bosses in Bloodborne in general aren't that elemental, and you also have less elemental play with your weapons overall).
Other way is to completely remove elemental effects from weapons. Or basically go the Bloodborne way. Where elemental effects are just elemental effects, and be it fire or electricity, doesn't really matter. The play is elemental or not, and if you plan on going elemental, you deal a lot of damage, in a certain way and it's very niche. But you can still deal a lot of damage as a physical or whatever. You don't feel as much locked out, as you do of another flavour.
Statistical play doesn't really work well for a linear game either. And yes, I consider the Soulsborne games linear. You don't have a faction of enemies or players who engage in certain ways of dealing damage, in certain physical areas, that you specialize and come back to. No, you go through all the content, meeting gimmick enemies with gimmick damage now and then. The problematique of preparing for an encounter is ridiculous when encounters are single-dos and the preparation sort of becomes moot.
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The headless big ones are just really bad, hands down. Because they're made for that one gimmick. They're bland easy enemies that just feel spongy. They're really made to be killed, in one specific way, and not fought.
After watching your DS3 reviews the main problem I've found is that you're so hung up on DS1 and what you want the game to be, you don't enjoy it for what it is.
im a little late here but this is exactly it. the actual fundamentals, mechanics, and especially boss fights are sssoooo much more consistent in DS3 yet everyone i see judges it solely on the position that "it doesnt have the world depth or inter-connectivity as DS1" well maybe it isn't supposed to man. upon multiple playthroughs it becomes apparent that DS3 is focused more on wide level type areas with many avenues to approach them by rather than just a large sandbox. I feel it's unfair that no one acknowledges how much more consistent this game is in quality compared to the other Souls Games but instead whines about what it lacks.
Zade I feel the same. Similar to bloodborne the faster and more polished combat unlike ds1 and 2 makes me like it more. The combat feels more skillful rather than trying to get past slow and glitchy mechanics. Plus ds3 has some of the best boss fights and in terms of moveset, design, and lore. For one example I felt like the champion gundyr fight was a great duel. I just think some people unfairly judge it because of nostalgia for ds1.
Kinda missing the point. He mentions several times that, as a whole, he enjoys all three games, especially 3, so your statement is incorrect. Plus, his first 5 videos on this channel attempts to fairly address the issues with DS1. Doesn't seem hung up to me. If there was a something he feels the first game did better, it's not a sin to say so.
@@MrMichealHouse my and his statements aren't "incorrect" because as far as im aware neither of us ever said he didn't like the game at all. We never made that claim, not sure where you got that? we were talking about people judging the game more on predisposition than the merit of it's content and saying that the game gets unwarranted criticism and hate for it, not that the person didn't like the game at all.
@@zade8586 Reverse Uno card time, where did I use the word "like"? The man said he doesn't enjoy it for what it is, I said he enjoys all of the games, with its perceived faults and all. Anderson does enjoy the game for what it is. You can enjoy something as a whole, but also be disappointed in/not enjoy 'certain' aspects of it. He is just of the mind that the game has regressed on certain issues, that first game already did well several years before, like his issues with Estus counts and boss animations tells. If a sequel game does something worse than a previous game, which he makes several claims and gives his evidence for, it should be called out. In his main review, 18 minutes in, he even says DS3 has consistently great level design, and that it could be the best of the 3 Souls games since it's so consistently good, even more so than DS1. So even what you about claim about no one acknowledging consistence is disingenuous, at least in the case of Anderson's reviews.
This confirms that you dislike runbacks to bosses that offer no difficulty, so I'm curious why you didn't bring them up in your Dark Souls 1 critique. Towards the beginning of DS1 there are hilariously bad runbacks, including the one to the Taurus Demon and the one to the Bell Gargoyles.
They have enemies in those runbacks, but after a few rounds you will have memorized a very consistent path through them all, and it becomes brainless.
This is one of Dark Souls 1's biggest weaknesses for me, and I just find it strange that it doesn't get brought up when people praise the first half of the game. It's a major, major hindrance on that first half.
He does bring up in his later Dark Souls critique videos. On OnS Atorias etc. I don't know why he doesn't mention it from the early bosses. However I'd argue Dark Souls 3 should be held more accountable as it had an additional 2 games to improve on. Ds1 had one game and no one really played Demon Souls as their first souls game. So really Ds1 had half a game to improve on.
@Light You won't, if you're a souls veteran. But if that is your first exposure to Souls? Hell yeah you're gonna die, and that increases the chance of people dropping the game.
@Light You absolutely will if you don't know about the crazy i-frames you get from rolling, which new players don't.
And the Bell Gargoyles are a major road block for many people. They are one of the most difficult bosses to do a no-hit naked Melee run on because they don't have a pattern you can memorize like with Midir. Go try beating them without magic, summons, or overpowered weapons/armor. Use light armor and a normal sword.
I don’t agree; because the point IS to learn that perfect path to preserve as much healing as possible for the boss. Saying that “it became too easy because I learnt a perfect path” is a bit backwards; your goal is to beat everything including the boss as one big challenge in the limited Estus you have, so developing mastery over the level before the boss is what makes it fun.
No reboot and it’s 2020. It was truly a bittersweet ending
These videos are honestly something so speical, and there's no other video that i see posted like yours that gets me as excited to watch some new content. Thanks for the amazing video as always, and I absolutely loved the little "rekt" that you included when you got shot by the exploding arrow. Keep up the great work Joe.
FROM definitely seems to have a problem with letting their "Effect Bars" go down quickly : Be it "Curse" here in DS3, or "Frenzy" in Bloodborne....
.....I really cannot even think why.
Any chance of a witcher 3 analysis?
He said he's gonna read the books and play the games in order. So get ready for a wait.
Books and games? Woah, this is true passion!
Did he mention what books will read? Main saga or also "side stories" like Sword of Destiny or The Last Wish?
Imo in those 'side stories' you get more Witcher than you get from main saga.
Buckle up! If he´s planning to replay Witcher 3 in order to get a full view on the game, he wont release a video for another yea, where he will eventually come out with 3 parts, each consisting of 2h xD
yeah "taking a while" since a year ago after yhe uncharted 4 videos, lol
I dont know, you seem like you have to argue against every point. Sometimes you feel like the game could be a little more mysterious and other times you wish it would be straight forward.
Fouad Ali I used to think this way due to blindly thinking if a game was really good, flaws could not be examined and brung up, but I’ve matured a decent amount since I first started watching Jordan and I now know although he does not mention it enough (sometimes) he still regards a game like dark souls 3 to be a great game. He is a critic after all, he critiques. He’s not a shitty review channel that goes “Oh wow BLANK game is so amazing I love it it’s the best game in the BLANK genre I’ve ever seen! 9/10” and the fucking game is the new call of duty
@@izan6366 It's a thin line between critiquing and nitpicking. Joseph crossed that line plenty of times in this video.
Edwin Lukas that’s the point of being a critic lol, you critique every flaw you see. If you want a review that is just super nice and ignores all flaws go watch ign
@@izan6366 no, nitpicking every single perceived flaws, however inconsequential to the general experience, is *not* the point of being a critic. Maybe stop watching so much shitty youtube "critics" or "reviewers", and you too, can tell the difference between *actual* constructive criticism and pedantic nitpicking.
This review is the exact opposite of IGN's reviews, Joseph went out of his way to magnify every single little perceived flaws because he couldn't find any legitimate criticism of the DLC, just to maintain his air of "objectivity". You know, it's possible for something to be just great with little to no flaws.
@@izan6366 But they aren't necessarily flaws. I find myself agreeing with him on all of the highlights of his points, but disagreeing on almost all of his critiques. What does that tell you? It's *OPINION.* Yet as per usual, he presents them as fact. He can't escape the fact that he again feels DS3 falls short for not sucking DS1's dick in level design (even though the interconnectivity of TRC is equal to if not better than the vast majority of DS1), yet he also criticizes the DLC for not being unique enough. He does the same with DS3 enemies, criticizing them for having a weakness that every enemy has had since DS1 (stunlock). I don't get that. It seems unfair and biased for no damn reason at all. His criticism on Midir was much the same. This wasn't a review, it was an opinion formed out of the nostalgic expectations of one fan that he forgot to state as such. And that is simply not what criticism is.
Ik this video is old, but the criticism that Midir doesn't make it obvious enough that you should attack his head doesn't make any sense to me. It's his only lock on point & you can figure out just by hitting his head once then hitting his leg once that it does way more damage. How else do you want this communicated? The game obviously isn't going to give a death screen tip that just says "dragons are weak to blows to the head." I really don't know how else they can communicate it through gameplay more than they already did
22:04 Elden Ring fixes this. The third or forth hit of a combo has a slightly different timing so the enemy has a chance to break your combo.
Still to this day I hold that the Ringed City is the worst of the Fromsoft Souls DLCs. Honestly, worse than the base game even.
Gael is great, Twin Demons is my fav boss in the Souls series. Everything else ranges from mid to bad. Midir for example is the worst of the DLC dragons. Kalameet and Sinh were both more fun to fight.
The swamp sections were barren, empty, boring, and unnecessarily large. Also wholly forgettable, unlike the between-boss areas of every other Fromsoft dlc.
The Ringed City isn't bad by any means but it's the worst of the DLCs. I think in big part because of all the complaints they got about Ariandel being "too short" (in truth it wasn't too short it was just too expensive for what it provided).
Gael Fight for me was absolutely awesome. It does to me, exactly what you talked about in your "Little Nightmares" Review, when a game just clicks with you and you feel it? That fight did a similar thing for me right from the start, and I love it everytime I play it, its just a shame that you have to go through the whole game to play it once :(
After spending nearly 12 hours to kill Midir, I went back to DS1 because I'd never done the DLC and I was expecting Kalameet to be just as hard. Ended up one-shotting Kalameet. I call Midir a true dragon boss done right.
This comment perfectly summarizes my entire DS1 playthrough
Your first game will always be the hardest. The other Dark Souls Games become somewhat trivial afterwards imo
i struggled more with Gael than i did with Midir. Blind playthrough with only +4 estus i think midir took me 1hour maybe a bit longer. Gael took me nearly 4, i finally broke and looked up the bone shard locations to get my estus flask to +8
You've got some really great stuff, especially you're Fallout video and look forward to see more but there's one thing I think you're wrong about, Ashes is intended to be played first, not TRC. Gael is meant to be interacted with before you start TRC though of course I can't say that for a fact(Story-wise there's really not alot of things that can be stated as a fact other than it's foundation but even that can be twisted to a certain extent) but it really seems like they intended for you to meet Gael, learn of his mission, follow in his footsteps - that way when he fails, like he already expected to, you can finish what he started.
You didn't talk about lapp
It’s a side mission that you don’t need to do in order to complete the DLC, so I think he is justified to not mention Lapp. But that kinda means mentioning midir was pointless so I don’t know. I’d say he dosent need to say it but you can definitely argue otherwise
izan Lapp was pretty irrelevant to the dlc and was disappointing while midir is an entire boss that connects to the world
@@plugshirt1684 Lapp helps you progress through the catacombs and provides you with a connection to the other souls games, Midir was just an optional dragon with the munchies. This argument goes both ways, bub.
@@jimijenkins2548 it really doesn’t Lapp is an npc while midir is an entire boss it’s like trying to compare the importance of an enemy to an entire area. Not to mention Lapp is also optional as you can just not talk to him plus there are lots of other things to compare to older games than Lapp in the dlc; there is literally an entire area from another game in here.
@@plugshirt1684 The same can be said about Midir, seeing as he is completely optional and has little to no bearing on the story. His boss status doesn't make him any more or less important than my boi patches.
It's like Christmas whenever you upload a video
Because he releases them once a year ;) ?
luckygozer clever
When it comes to Midir, a lot of people make the mistake of thinking the best place to be is underneath him. WRONG. Being underneath him is what gives you all the camera problems. You won't be able to see what he's doing and you'll end up dying a lot.
Stay in front of him and 'focus on evasion' before punishing him with a couple R1s or a rolling R2 after your dodge. This gives you a reliable way to attack with screwing up your positioning.
Am I the only one who thinks it's enough dark souls? I mean, it's being a great journey but to me DS3 already had that feeling of "Ok, i've already seen this". Maybe it's because I played all the games but I'd love to see Fromsoft attempting a different project other than trying to exploit the souls genre.
After having played DS3 I feel the same too.
idk a new universe could be good but i dont think from is out of ideas
ds3 has the best bosses decent levels and imo the best combat the the series
a break should improve the next game but i REALLY want From to make another souls like game
You're not alone and to a certain extent, I think Miyazaki feels the same way. I have no proof about what I'm about to say, but I've always felt like Dark Souls was meant to be a stand alone game and Miyazaki only did a third game to end the story on his own terms. I feel like this is why there is just so much old stuff in Dark Souls 3 since Miyazaki did all he wanted to do with the first game.
I wonder how you feel about the Dark Souls 1 remake then
I hear you. Bloodborne thrilled me. Dark Souls 3 never surprised me. It’s a fun game but the series is out of gas.
16:07 the twin kitty fight is similar. After you get the second one to come down they also attack in turns. That's what happened to me
I have just finished this DLC finally (I was experiencing souls fatigue and hadn't played in quite some time, but I wanted to play it on NG rather than on NG+ cycles with existing characters). I thought it was ok - stellar bosses but lord did I hate some of the areas.
My build was light; I was using the sellsword twinblades my class had started with and a small leather shield for parrying; and I massively struggled with the enemies. Any fight against multiple ring knights meant death pretty much, since unlike in your video footage I could never spam them to stagger but I would always get staggered when my character was so much as tickled - despite wearing medium armor. For me it all comes back to FROM's decision to remove poise. I had taken up a large chunk of my carry weight wearing decent armor that didn't protect me from anything. Fighting multiples here never felt fun because of this. I would get stunlocked by the ganks of murkmen (one tiny area had 3 summoners, a miracle casting knight and what felt like a hundred of these guys and I had to hide in a corridor and bait the knight to do it after dying several times). The angels were fine IMO - I'm a completionist so I found all their effigies to kill, and I liked that these didn't respawn so I could loot the area afterwards. I didn't mind the swamp but I didn't like that it was much easier and more efficient to just run through and collect rather than take the time to kill everything, as every nick of damage I took seemed to drop a full estus charge worth of health even from the weaker enemies - again despite 40 vigor, ring of favor (+3 even when I found it), and medium armor. And the game relishes in throwing 4-5 enemies at you at once. Without a heavy, staggering weapon with sweeping attacks this regularly felt like bullshit.
Demon prince was ok and I killed him on my first attempt. First phase was great - they did exactly what you said, one would melee attack while the other telegraphed ranged attacks and it felt fair. However I burned a lot of estus on phase 2 because unlike your experience, my prince spammed the chaos orb meteor shower shite over and over and it became hard to get opportunities to attack without taking massive damage.
Midir was a little frustrating because my puny swords couldn't reach his head a lot of the time. I died probably 8-10 times learning the first phase, a couple more thanks to crazy lazor in the 2nd, and then got the kill which was immensely satisfying. I didn't lock on at all after seeing that the camera was going to be bad and it wasn't an issue. I did not bother going for body hits because of the pathetic damage my swords did and his enourmous health bar, but it felt ok given that he is a massive dragon. 1 shot kills with the laser on my huge health pool felt a little bullshit though. I actually fought him first; FROM has conditioned me to look for jumpoff points on elevators and there was a message in front of the illusionary wall. I feel like the run to his boss room helped me though - sometimes a bit of a break is good to cool off after the adrenaline and stress of a long attempt that failed.
The fucking half light whatever pvp bullshit was the worst. I didn't realise what it was or I would have done it offline. Australian internet does not go well with PVP in this game, and though I did it on the first try, I spent the entire fight dodging the painting guardian knives and homing soulmass while the invader R1 spammed over and over. He wasn't a very good player, which is the only reason I won, because his swings would connect with me from across the room. Lag is why I don't engage in any of the online content; it is not fun on any level. I managed to pull off a surprise parry on him which he wasn't expecting but I had to hit parry before he'd even swung (I just guessed he would since he was sprint attacking over and over again). Just got the kill with no estus left. Never again.
Gael on the other hand was fantastic, a tough callback that I likened, like you, to Artorias and Orphan of Kos. Fantastic fight, took me a few attempts but nothing too crazy to get frustrated (unlike Blackflame Friede who kicked my ass every time I made it to her). I'm glad they didn't give him never ending combos like her. He felt fair and it was a good fight.
Sorry for the long post but I wanted to share my experience. I don't mind fights with multiples necessarily and I have never complained about DS2 or manually aiming the camera to crowd control. But dealing this much damage per hit is unmanageable with smaller weapons and often feels extremely unfair. I don't think players should have to change their loadout for a certain area. To me, Souls games have always been about finding a weapon you like then making it work. My twinblades often felt excessive against some bosses that I could just wail on, but then whenever I was fighting anything with a shield (lothric knights, cathedral knights, ringed knights) I couldn't do anything. I had to practice parrying against lothric knights and the black knight with the ultra greatsword for a couple of hours to parry so I had any tool to use at all. Even worse if there were more than one of them. No kick, no stagger, no poise of my own. Not fun.
I'm glad to have done it to say that I've completed all the soulsborne content but I don't think I want to do it again; the levels are tedious and frustrating. I will gladly play a bossrush mode if it's ever introduced though (I know there's a mod for PC but I have PS4 and I'm not buying this game again).
I think that your recommendation for the ringed city to have been the direction the base game went with would have been pretty cool, especially from a lore stand point.
Let's say that you play as a forlorn soul from the painting, one that has just hollowed and forgotten their past. Outside, Lothric has refused to link the fire, and waits in his bed chamber for the fire to fade. Your job is help the painter paint a new world, an eternal world painted from the dark soul of man, where humanity can flee the age of dark.
Gael has already ventured out in search of it, but never returned. He left clues for you, already knowing that by the time he makes the dark soul of man whole again, it will have dried up, and will need his blood. You venture out of the painting to find yourself in the dreg heap, with all the civilisations that have ever existed grinding to dust around you. That can be the tutorial, just like the Asylum.
Then, you reach the ringed city, the first city of man, walled off from the world by Gwyn, left to exist for as long as Fillianore's slumber lasts. There, some wacky shenanigans occur, maybe even involving you venturing back into the painting and dealing with father Ariandel and Freide, along with perhaps Sulyvahn, until you find yourself face to face with Fillianore herself back in the ringed city. From there you have two choices, either leave her to her slumber, and embrace the rot, or awaken her, much to the dismay of Midir and Shira.
If you chose to awaken her, then you get sent forward in time. The protection that Fillianore's slumber gave has worn off and the ringed city has joined every other civilisation in grinding to dust. The world is nearly complete ash, and Gael is waiting, along with Shira and Midir (or maybe they could be fought earlier idk). You fight Gael, find the pigment, then go back in time somehow (eh?) to when the Fillianore had just awoken, and travel back to the painting, give the pigment to Aria, burn the old painting step into the new, eternal painting painted from the dark soul of man.
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Actually if you've seen Shin Godzilla you'd die to it once and laugh at how it's obvious that From really liked that movie, then never die to it again.
I realize this isn't good game design, but it's an obvious reference to that movie nonetheless.
remember Jo you have items that deal with those status effects granted for the crystal men you will have to use a divine blessing
I really enjoy your review.
The Cathedral boss fight against the Spears of the Church tho. I feel that the online version of this fight is a great new version of PvP. However, when reviewing the game from a PvE/lore experience standpoint, I would recommend only evaluating this fight based on the experience with the Offline NPC the fight uses: Halflight, Spear of the Church. This is the NPC who uses the Frayed Blade and is a pretty cool fight that is better balanced than most PvP versions.
"It's always sad to see something you love end". See I prefer things to end. Before they degrade. Become diminished overtime. Go out on top. It's not just about the journey. The destination matters to me as well.
Definetely agree with the last part. always feels like a big fuck you when game devs put you in a "massive world" without actually being able to go anywhere.
So just like Dark Souls 1 and Demon Souls, nothing new here.
Jamie Carew Anor Londo
Mr. Boom At least you visited some things in Anor Londo. more than a goddamn swamp.
visited things, like a single church and the palace. Literally that is all you explore in Anor Londo. Nothing new in comparison to Ringed City.
@@WFoong98 actually in dark souls 1 you could go to most of the areas teased at the start of the game
Midir is amazing if you ask me, he's all about positionning and since the head takes more damage, it's obvious that you should focus it as Midir will give easy to dodge and punish attacks if you stay in front of him... and you're a threat to bosses, they certainly won't let you decide how to fight them, you need to adapt to their fighting style
That's a lot of food for thought, dude. And the Rocky montage alone was worth the watch.
Firstly I wanna say thanks for making these videos, they're great to watch and what inspired me to pick up these games in the first place. Regarding your final point...
I had a similar feeling at the end, but not because we got to see so little of the Ringed City (though I initially thought they'd allow for more exploration as well when I first saw the vista). I was disappointed because in my opinion, they failed to deliver on the whole, "end of the world" bit where you fight Gael.
When the egg crumbles and you're met with the decayed, sandy world, I immediately went, "Oh wow, I see why everyone liked this DLC more, they're gonna have you play backwards through the city in this decayed wasteland!" and then I stepped out, fought Gael, and it was over. I think personally that would've been a nice way of extending your exploration of parts of the city without overextending far beyond what would normally be included in DLC.
Also yeah, Spear of the Church is bad; I didn't realize until seeing your video that the fight was PVP at all, I just thought that fight had weirdly spotty hit-detection and never really questioned it further.